


If You Give a Subjugglator a Shot of Tequila…

by Bettername



Series: Bad Ideas that Turned Out Surprisingly Well [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M, Swearing, ancestors don't have happy backstories, there are bits of this that are sad, troll slurs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-31
Updated: 2013-08-28
Packaged: 2017-11-13 05:45:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 38
Words: 68,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/500141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bettername/pseuds/Bettername
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is Bro Strider and you have been trapped in a memory of your apartment ever since you met your sticky end at the hand of Bec Noir. So when you get the chance to explore a newly arrived desert you jump at it. And when you meet the troll version of Attila the Hun you invite him over of course.</p><p>Welcome to the afterlife where nothing makes sense and the points don’t matter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. If You Give a Subjugglator a Shot of Tequila

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome aboard my cracked ship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all of the wonderful comments and kudos! I'm glad to see that some of you like this pairing as much as I do.

There is a sword embedded in your kitchen cabinet. Usually the swords are in the cabinets, not lodged in the door. You sip your mug of coffee at a glacier pace as you survey the damage to the pressed fiberboard plank. Five inches. The jolt that unceremoniously woke your ass up managed to sink a shitty mail order sword a whole five inches deep. This event is the most interesting thing to happen to you in two years. For a few days after you met your sticky end at the hand of Bec Noir, living in a memory bubble instead of ceasing to exist seemed like a righteous idea. After two years of drinking the same piss water beer that you bought for the sake of irony the novelty of being forced to spend the rest of eternity in your miniscule apartment had worn off. The apartment is an exact duplicate of the one you shared with your lil bro back in Texas, but the catch is you can’t leave. Inside the apartment nothing has changed. It is if the game never happened. But outside your front door there is nothing. And when you mean nothing, its literal white void of nothingness. Like you tried to take a step outside and almost plummeted into the blank white expanse. So you stand in your kitchen up to your fuzzy pink bunny slippers in swords and shurikins and try to make this moment last as long as possible. You are getting all tantric with this moment. Frankie says relax, so take your good sweet time savoring this. Your excitement sticks around until you reach the bottom dregs in your world’s best mom mug. Who knew that the afterlife would be this mind numbing. Not this guy. You trudge over to the sink and instead of depositing your ceramic vessel of irony into the metal tray you drop it. All you see is rust. The panes of the window above the sink are filled in with rust. You flashstep over to the front door and whip it open.

“Fuck me and my nonexistent Texan twang.” The wide white yonder got upgraded to a reddish orange colored rock strewn desert. This was by far your most interesting day of being dead. The decision to leave the drudgery of your apartment was made the instant the door opened. Sure Cal is your best bud and always will be, but a man gets stir crazy after a while. You swap your robe and bunny slippers for something more appropriate for exploring, double check your strife specibus, and adjust your kamina shades as you head out the door. 

Deserts suck even if you are technically dead. The blazing sun beats down on your pale skin with the fury of a hundred ex-girlfriends. The sweltering heat and hellscape make you feel a bit nostalgic. It reminds you of Texas only with dry heat and a welcomed shortage of fire ants. Fire ants don’t care if you are a Strider with near legendary ninja abilities, they will still bite your ass. Fire ants don’t give a shit, they do what they want. Your aimless wandering through the wasteland comes to an abrupt end when you spot a collection of spiraling towers haphazardly mashed together. Staring at rocks instantly loses its appeal; you make a beeline for the castle. You circle the perimeter of the rambling structure and pause at what looks like the entrance, entrance being a generous term for a gaping hole in the wall. From what you gathered on inspection you shouldn’t be here. The hulking ruins seem to be ripped straight out of a b-rated horror flick, marinated in LSD, and plonked down on a 50’s Sci-fi set. Danger be damned. You are a Strider. And you are not going to turn tail and run just because of some tweaked out architecture.Striders gotta stride. You stride into the heart of darkness.

The inside of the hulking structure is just how you take your coffee, black. You shuffle until your outstretched fingers brush against rough hewn stone. Your hands molest the newly found surface and declare it to be a wall. Congratulations Strider, you have discovered a wall. Being the over achiever that you are, finding a wall isn’t enough. Time to get deep in this bitch. You follow the twisting corridor further. The wall abruptly ends. You spot a faint glow in the distance. For once in your life you hesitate. The light isn’t a bug zapper, but it seems ominous. The air is thick, stifling, holding you in place. You shouldn’t be here. But yet you are. So when did you turn into a little girl Strider? You cut a fucking meteor in half. Suck it up and keep moving forward. Always move forward. You move forward, creeping  
closer to the light.

Rows of torches flank the room, illuminating walls that seem to be constructed solely out of angles. Sorry for being obtuse with you mister Strider I’m just getting my Lovecraft on. H.P would have a field day with this. The walls jut out of the floor; the stone fragments akin to shattered mirror piece themselves together branching up to a bastardized vaulted ceiling. You inch closer to a torch to study the dark splatter halo encircling the flame. On closer inspection the substance isn’t black; it’s a dark navy blue. You gingerly swipe a finger tip over a glob and rub the liquid between your fingers. The ooze is highly viscous. You give the mysterious substance a whiff. In the medley of odors is a distinct scent of copper. It’s blood. And the walls are covered in it. At first there are just a few splatters here and there. But by the time you are several torches down the wall, the lazy Pollock dribbles turn into full on smears. What disturbs you the most isn’t the sheer quantities, but the array of colors. This slaughterhouse isn’t reserved for just one type of aliens. Nope the butcher seems to be an equal opportunist. Violet stains the walls and floors along with multiple shades of blues, greens and yellows. Your body stills at the sight of a single red hand print. The hand’s morphology is similar, a palm, four fingers, and a thumb. But the scale of it is daunting. 

The refined ninja sense that you are so damn proud of alerts you to the fact that you are far from being alone. The part of yourself that urged you on to fight Noir says it can’t be that bad. Another part of your brain reminds you that Noir killed your ass. You turn to find the maker of the hand print. Oh yes, it can be that bad. But your name is Bro Strider. And you are not going to freak the fuck out just because a creature straight out of children’s nightmares is staring down at you from a throne made out of skulls. Ok maybe just a little bit. You allow your bottom lip to twitch once. You’ve wasted enough time with your little shit fit, time to figure out what exactly is going to fuck up your day. Let’s start with the obvious. The creature is gargantuan, yes good term. You estimate it at twelve feet from the thing’s head down to the tips of its feet. Two massive candy corn colored horns spiral to the ceiling, which are surrounded by a frizzy mane of black hair. The face of the beast looks like a skull, check that, it’s just painted to look like a skull with a wicked set of chompers. Not disconcerting at all. The two blank white eyes remain locked on you as you continue to look the creature over. The creature seems strangely humanoid with two arms and legs attached to the torso in the expected places. The skin on the hands and feet are grey in color. The fingers and toes both terminate in vicious claws that seem well suited for eviscerating hapless victims. The black and purple clothing do little to hide the behemoth’s muscle. Great Grendel is fucking ripped. The behemoth yawns. The maw of the creature is filled to capacity with what can best be described as prehistoric shark teeth. This is it Strider. If you are going to die don’t be a pussy about it. 

The monstrosity sits upright in his throne and drags a hand through his mane sweeping the straggling tresses behind his horns before leaning back. The creature looks dignified, regal, and deadly. The behemoth leans to the side and rummages through the bone pile beside his throne. Instead of pulling out a sword or battle axe to smite your pathetic human ass he whips out a cup and takes a big swig of what looks to be radioactive green slime. 

“MOTHERFUCKER, I’m not HALLUCINATING THIS TIME.” He takes another sip of the sludge. “I wouldn’t create some PATHETIC WRETCHED creature. You look like a pink soft two legged wiggler. You would SQUISH WELL BENEATH MY FEET.” The creature leans forward. “You haven’t FLED IN TERROR, nor are you TREMBLING IN FEAR. Has your think pan BEEN DAMAGED in such a way that you are unable to REGISTER THAT MOTHERFUCKING EMOTION?” Holy shit its speaking English. And its staring at you like its waiting for a response. You shake your head no. “ReAlLy? Well that is MOTHERFUCKING REFRESHING. One thousand sweeps. I’ve been around for ONE MOTHERFUCKING THOUSAND sweeps. And that entire time it was NOTHING BUT A STREAM OF TERRIFIED LITTLE SHITS. All of them pleading or begging FOR ONE MOTHERFUCKING THING OR ANOTHER. Don’t cull me Grand Highblood. SPARE MY PLANET GRAND HIGHBLOOD. Please don’t ENSLAVE MY RACE Grand Highblood. Whatever you do DON’T TURN my home world into a MOTHERFUCKING MOLTEN BALL OF SLAG Grand Highblood. One MOTHERFUCKING thing or another. But I digress.” His eyes narrow to slits. “I only know of one motherfucking instance when the fuckers wouldn’t cower in fear.” He goes silent for a moment while he glares down at you, almost as if he is trying to peer into your very soul. “You don’t happen to have any paperwork for me to fill out do you?” Paperwork? This thing is a fucking glorified pencil pusher? “ANSWER ME MEATSACK. Do you want me to FILL SOME MOTHERFUCKING FORMS OUT? Because I’m FED UP WITH THIS HOOFBEAST SHIT.” You shake your head no. “Does the EMPRESS WISH TO CONVERSE with me?” You shake your head no again. “Good because I’m not MOTHERFUCKING HIGH ENOUGH to deal with that nook.” He pauses to take another sip. “I’m almost motherfucking CERTAIN I’m DEAD anyways. But leave it up to her to find a way to TORMENT ME IN THE AFTERLIFE.” He glances back down to you. “Are you MOTHERFUCKING DECEASED?” You nod. “Don’t say much do you meatsack?” You shake your head. The behemoth makes a series of clicking noises you take as a sigh and leans back against the throne. “What are you PINK FLESHY CREATURE?”

“A human.”

“Human.” He pauses and ponders for a moment. “I don’t remember conquering your MOTHERFUCKING PLANET AND ENSLAVING YOUR RACE.”

“You haven’t.”

“What do others of your species call you?”

“Strider.”

“I am the GRAND HIGHBLOOD. MOTHERFUCKING LEADER of the Subjugglators. GENERAL of the Imperial Troll army.”

“So you’re a troll.”

“My species refers to ourselves as such.”

“And you’re called Grand Highblood.”

“It’s more of a title.”

“So what do you want me to call you?”

“Makara.” An awkward silence begins to rear its head. “So … Strider human. What MOTHERFUCKING PURPOSE do you have to ENTER MY LAIR?”

“I was hoping to slay some time.”

“What activity do you suggest to SLAY THIS MOTHERFUCKING TIME with?”

“Strife.” Makara chuckles.

“It is your desire to engage in MORTAL COMBAT?” He looks you over. “Strife with you would not seem a MOTHERFUCKING CHALLENGE worth undertaking.” You smirk.

“I can make it challenging. All you have to do is follow me back to my apartment.” It’s your turn to look the troll over. “However you might not fit.” The troll ponders for a moment. 

“That situation can be MOTHERFUCKING REMEDIED.” The troll shrinks down to half his size and hops off of the throne all while holding his cup and not spilling a single drop. Impressive sir. “Lead the way to your hive STRIDER.”

It took a few seconds, minutes, hours, days, the passage of time was difficult to measure in bubbles before the troll and you reach the beige stucco box of an apartment. During the trek through the wasteland Makara regaled you with his tales of planetary conquests, intergalactic wars, and battles that raged for centuries. His life could be summed up in one phrase Veni, Vedi, Vici. I came, I saw, I conquered, or in his case culled. Culling and painting were his two favorite pass times. You were surprised that the troll version of Genghis Khan liked to paint, until he informed you that he used blood of his victims for pigments. You learned another surprising tid-bit of information about the troll. Carpet freaks him the fuck out.

“Grub bristles. Your lair is coated in millions of motherfucking grub bristles” he mutters while kneading his toes into the carpet pile. You try to stifle a giggle as the six foot behemoth gingerly picks his feet up one at a time, acclimating to the novel feeling. “Do you TAKE JOY IN SLAUGHTERING the young of your species? Is this covering on your floor a MOTHERFUCKING TROPHY from your exploits?” You fail at repressing your laughter. You wipe a tear off with a gloved hand and look back up to the troll who is trying to determine the reason behind your actions. “You take joy in massacre. You are ONE SICK MOTHERFUCKER.” A toothy grin stretches across his face. “I LIKE IT.” 

“Makara.” You glance over the top of your shades. “Are you prepared for mortal combat?” The troll straightens up. 

“I am prepared to ENGAGE IN BATTLE human.” You flashstep over to the troll and hand him a small black device.

“These will be our weapons.” 

“Your moiral will WEEP RIVERS OF BLOOD; your matesprite will gnash their teeth as I CRUSH YOUR BRITTLE BONES underneath my feet.” The troll cackles as he rips your head off for the fourth time. This is what you get for letting him pick his character first. The six foot mass of muscle is giggling gleefully as the pixilated blood drip down the severed spine. And this is why you should have picked Scorpion. 

“Wanna swap characters?”

“It will only vary my ways of ANNIHILATING YOU” Makara chuckles. You pause the game and wander over to the frigid temple of swords and booze.

“Want anything?”

“Got any wicked elixir?”

“Wicked elixir?”

“Faygo.”

Faygo. How the hell do trolls know about Faygo? Faygo’s continuing existence as a brand of soda is all kinds of levels of ironic, but you have to draw the line somewhere when grocery shopping.

“No.” Your reply is followed by a long pause.

“This is your memory; you can WILL IT INTO EXISTENCE.” Shut the front door. What the hell did he just say?

“You can make stuff appear? I think about it and poof it’s there?”

“You were not AWARE OF THAT? This memory is your domain. You have UNLIMITED CONTROL. In its confines you are MOTHERFUCKING OMNIPOTENT.” Really? You close the refrigerator door, visualize a two liter of the carbonated sugar water and open the door. There it sits in all its purple fizzy glory on a shelf. Hell yes. Screw irony, it’s been a year since you last had a good buzz. You close the refrigerator door again, and this time you picture a bottle of something much more potent than the mildly alcoholic piss water you’ve been doomed to drink. You reopen the door. Hell Fucking Yes. You saunter over to the living room and are greeted but a highly unexpected sight. An exceedingly content Makara is sprawled out over a rainbow pile of smuppets that he must have collected. He jolts upright as you walk over to the couch. “Trolls gravitate to piles. It’s instinctual” he rushes. You slowly nod as you hand him the Faygo. 

“I’m not going to judge you” you reassure him as you return to your spot on the couch. Must be like cats and their need to cram themselves into small containers. He settles back down into the conglomeration of plushy abominations. You sigh as you fondly examine the bottle in your hand. Makara looks at you puzzled.

“It’s my wicked elixir” you reply to his unasked question.

“What is the name of this HUMAN ELIXIR?”

“We call it” You pause for dramatic effect “tequila.”

“Te-kiiiillll- yaaahh. The clear substance HAS KILL in the name. It must be MOTHERFUCKING GLORIOUS.”

“It is.” You unscrew the cap and take a sizable swig before holding it out to the troll. Makara takes the bottle from you, gives it a sniff before taking a swig of his own. He chuckles and hands the bottle back.

“Glorious INDEED.”

Over the course of the next several hours you learn two things. Number one, the tequila that you materialized is the best achievement of your afterlife. Number two, tequila can get a fucker blitzed. It did not matter if you were alive, dead, human, or troll. Tequila’s effect was a universal constant. One intriguing question that remained unanswered was just how much tequila it took to get the troll drunk since the bottle kept refilling itself when the liquid neared the bottom, which was quote a motherfucking miracle end quote. Either way you knew you were drunk, Makara was drunk, and that it was a quote motherfucking glorious thing indeed end quote.

The inebriated troll crawls out of the pile and plunks himself down on the floor between your legs.

“STrIBro.”

“Yeah?”

“I dOn’T kNow HoW lOng wE aRe GoiNg to bE toGetHer sO I HavE to teLl yOu tHiS nOw.” Makara fidgets before tilting his head up to you. His white eyes look into you. “YoU’Re a mOthErFucKin MiRacLe bRo. tHiS is aS cLoSe As I’vE eVeR BeEn tO sOmeOnE tHat I wAsN’T uSiNg tHeiR BloOd tO pAinT tHe mOtHeRfUckiNg wAlLs wItH.” The troll’s skin has a dark blue tinge. He’s turning blue, that can’t be a good thing. Wait a second his blood is bluish so…

“Are you blushing?” His cheeks turn a deeper shade of bluish purple. “You are blushing.” Makara looks horrified and suddenly starts to find the floor to be extraordinarily fascinating. “So what was that? A pickup line?” His eyes flicker up to you before returning to the floor.

“WeLl…” Makara does a little squirm as he thinks. The troll then scoots up to you and flicks his tongue over your bottom lip. It takes a moment for your alcohol addled brain to register what just happened. Makara is sitting back down on the floor, his big eyes staring at you. Makara uses troll puppy eyes. “sLopPy mAkEouts?” he asks while his eyes continue to plead. Its super effective.

You don’t understand what makes you take the following actions. Is it the alcohol, loneliness, horniness, pity, your inability to resist that level of moe, all that you know is that you are a man compelled. You slide a gloved hand underneath his jaw and bury your fingers in the mass of hair and pull his face up to meet yours. You plant a kiss on his lips and drag your tongue across his bottom lip before pulling away.

“Sloppy makeouts.” You wipe off the paint smeared over your mouth. Makara touches his bottom lip and stares at his fingers for a few moments, looking deep in thought. He then shifts his gaze back up to you and the remnants of paint smears on your chin. The troll’s eyes light up and he does the most adorable full body wiggle that you’ve seen this side of the internet. Then the six foot fluffy haired conqueror of worlds that you are arguing with yourself over if you really did just think he was adorable because come on he is like troll Attila the Hun pounces. Your eyes flicker open and you find yourself lying on the couch, your hat is somewhere just not on your head, your shades probably with your hat, all two hundred pounds of troll is propped up on top of you, one hand up sliding up your shirt, the other hand’s fingers tangled in your hair, and his tongue wrapped around yours. You attempt to think. The massive quantities of alcohol flowing through your system and the tongue exploring every bit of real estate in your mouth quashes that fast. This is not a time for thinking this is a time for doing and fuck his slick wet muscle entwined with yours sucking it into his maw feels fucking good. Hehe fucking that would be good too.

His leg brushes up against your crotch and you get a reassuring throb in reply. Looks like whiskey dick is not going to be a problem tonight. You shiver as his thumb flicks over a nipple. It stiffens and you stiffen along with it at the cool touch. Your eyes flutter open as Makara’s exquisite wonder muscle exits your mouth. The troll that left your mouth wanting more is straddling your hips staring down at the bumps hidden by your shirt. A low growl is hastily followed by his clawed fingers hooking around the collar of your shirt and shredding it with ease. The now content troll happy after destroying his enemy, your shirt, returns to rubbing your hardened sensitive nubs underneath his calloused thumbs. Makara stops torturing you momentarily and scoots further down on the couch. His lips hover right above your chest. Is he going to? Oh yes he is. His dark blue tongue languidly circles an aureola before his lips gently lower around it. You gasp and arch your back as the troll starts to suck. He responds by sucking harder and encircling his arms around you his claws lightly skimming over your pale exposed skin. Makara gives the delectable fleshy bump one last flick with the tip of his tongue before venturing off to taste the rest of your freckled flesh.

You turn into a squirming panting mess by the time his lips reach your hip bones. You brush your fingertips along the ridges on his horns as he traces the outline of a hip bone. Makara chirps as you switch from skimming over the horn to slowly stroking it. His eyes snap up to you as your hand eases to a stop.  
“StRibRo.” He’s doing the puppy eye thing again. “cAn yoU sTroKe mY hOrnS aGaiN?” And now he is full on puppy eye pleading mode. Okay. You run your fingers from the tip of the horn down to the orange base. Makara closes his eyes and starts to make a rumbling sound as you wrap your fingers loosely around the horn and start to stroke it. He’s purring. Fuck that’s cute. You glance over to the free horn and get an idea. Curiosity killed the cat. You stick your tongue out and take a tentative lick. Makara makes a chirping noise and inches closer to you. And satisfaction brought it back. You smirk and lovingly give the horn a tongue bath. After a few minutes it’s the troll’s turn to turn into a mush puddle. The gooey mess looks up to you panting and flushed up to his ears. “mInE” he growls.

Makara pulls off the remaining tatters of your shirt and flings them off into the far corners of the room. He sits up and slightly nods approvingly as he surveys your exposed chest. The troll then yanks his shirt off not caring as it rips on his sharp horn tips and tosses it. You can’t help but gawk at the grey mass of muscle straddling your hips. He is a statue. He is a statue of a fucking horned Greek God. Makara chuckles.

“IF tHiS iS yOuR reAcTiOn foR mE tAkIng My mOtHerFuCkiNg shIrT OfF, wHaT aRe yOu GoIng tO Do wHeN yOu seE wHat thE fUcK iS In mY pAnTs?” He hooks a thumb in his waistband and gives it a snap. “WeLl cOmE oN mOthErfUckEr.” The troll lazily grins as your focus shifts from his deliciously well defined abs to his black and purple patterned pajama pants. As you stare at his crotch you swear something squirms behind the thin fabric. You hand creeps closer to him reaching for the waistband like the hand of a soon to be victim in a slasher flick reaches for the door knob to the room that they should not enter. A part of your mind screams not to do it while your body ignores all logical thought. You are compelled to know what lurks behind those pants. You need to know what is behind those pants. You fingers grip the hem and pull the pants down.

“He’s part purple octopus” you whisper. It’s a purple tentacle. A writhing purple tentacle slick with translucent purplish blue liquid that oozes down its tapered length. The foot long squirming appendage is a sight to behold, the tip two finger widths wide and the base is about as thick as your wrist. I’ve watched enough hentai to know where this is going you think as it wiggles closer. Makara unzipping your pants breaks you out of the snake charmer’s trance and now it’s his turn to be amazed at the peculiarities of alien wingwangs. You have to admit that him staring at your junk is unsettling. You clear your throat. Well? Makara is still staring at your junk. He goes to say something but closes his mouth after reconsidering it. The troll is speechless. You smirk.

“hUh.”

“What?”

“HuH.”

“What does huh mean?” When you hear huh it is usually followed by ‘oh my god it’s so big,’ or ‘I don’t think it’s going to fit’ and of course your favorite ‘ does Japan know that you are hiding Godzilla in your pants?’ His eyes are still locked on your junk. The troll points to your pride and joy.

“Is iT sUppOsEd tO mOthErfUcKinG loOk lIkE tHaT? iTs nOt mOviNg. oOoo nOw iTs sHrInKiNg.” No he couldn’t have said that its, it’s a magnificent hunk of man meat. Bask in its glory troll for you will never see such a sight again. “iS It sUpPosEd tO gEt sMaLlEr?” That does it. No one insults your one eyed wonder weasel and gets away with it. You are appalled. No outraged. No something stronger than outraged you are nnnnnngggghhhh. Makara’s bulge cuts off the rant inside your head by slithering around your member and giving it a squeeze. His bulge and your cock are actively ignoring the both of you and start getting friendly. Your erection stiffens as the bulge curls further around its length. You moan as the slick appendage begins to ripple up and down your shaft in a stroking motion. The skin coated in what you can only assume is pre-cum tingles.

Your eyes flicker up to Makara. The troll languidly skims his tongue over his lips as the lust builds in his heavily lidded eyes. He shuts them as he makes a low rumbling sound and rocks towards you. Your hips reply with a thrust of your own and the troll shifts his position until he is parallel with you propping himself up on his knees and elbows pressing his skin against yours ever so slightly. Makara cups your shoulders with his palms, his arms surrounding yours. He rests his head on the armrest next to yours. His cool grey skin soothes the furnace flaring inside of you as his bulge’s ministrations continue to stoke the fire. You listen to the troll breathe, his pants, his gasps; the clicks that interrupt the low rumbling purr as your finger roam along his sides.

You reach out and brush your finger tips against his horn, skimming along the tip, trailing over the spiraling ridges down to the base. His breath hitches as your fingers work along the sensitive new growth. You burrow your fingers into his thick mane of hair as your thumb rubs the junction were the horn meets the skull. Makara nuzzles against the crook of your neck, you turn allowing him access. His broad indigo tongue laps your exposed pale freckled flesh. You moan and squirm underneath him spurning him onward, making his thrusts more urgent. He nibbles down your neck starting just below the ear working down to the collarbone, biting down around the bone. You cry out and rake your nails down his back as you come. He hisses and his bulge spasms pouring out his seed. The thick purplish blue liquid puddles on your stomach.

Makara grabs a scrap of your shirt off of the floor and wipes his genetic material off before tossing the soaked cloth back onto the floor. A thought of cleaning the mess that you made up wanders into your mind and is silenced by the troll wiggling up against you. He positions himself between you and the couch. His arms encircle you and he pulls you close. The both of you drift off to sleep guided by his purring.


	2. You'll Be the One with the Hangover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hangovers are fun.

The sun is like the flashlight of a wrathful god, bright, merciless, and unrelenting. Has the limited grey matter that you managed not to obliterate during the bender the night before decide to get the fuck out of dodge? Do you desperately want to linger in the sweet painless embrace of sleep for just a few moments longer? Too fucking bad. When the glowing ball of radiation decides that it’s time for your ass to wake up, it’s time for your ass to get up. One lid opens with the alacrity of road kill. A hiss escapes from your cracked lips as a ray of remorseless light hits the exposed eye. The sun it burns us. You unconsciously search for your AWOL shades. All that you manage to do is make your throbbing headache worse when your hand smacks against your brow. Apparently hitting yourself in the approximate location where your missing shades should be is indeed not the ideal way to search for kamina bastards. Your salvation from the sunlight is MIA, time for evasive maneuvers. 

You attempt to roll from your back onto your stomach. The action prompts you to two important yet unsavory facts. Fact one your stomach hates you. Your brain might not remember what happened last night but your stomach remembers all like a vengeful elephant. Fact number two, there is a disconcerting slickness between your thighs. You go down through the list of possibilities. Did you piss yourself? No. Did you spill something on yourself? The viscosity of the unknown liquid suggests otherwise. Anal sphincter reports that no penetration has occurred. Hey there flesh cannon did we get some action last night? Why yes, yes we did. Wait a minute. If we’re dead… where did that action come from? You don’t want to know is all your man meat replies. Why does it seem like your penis knows more than you? When did he become such a surly bastard? And why are you having a conversation with your own dick? Curiosity gets the best of you when your questions go unanswered. You tilt yourself onto a side and hazard a look down to your lower half. The fly is undone and your crotch is coated with a thin film of dark purplish blue ooze. Your tongue feels questionably slick. You make an executive decision to not continue with that line of questioning. You do not need to know what the inside of your mouth tastes like and why. 

You are a hungover slut. And now you are a hungover slut with a mug hovering in front of your face. You take the steaming cup. The bubbling sludge looks like it got scooped out of swamp thing’s lake. A hesitant sniff confirms your theory. A grinding series of clicks snags your attention away from the putrid magma. You glance up and find a sentient being that looks how you feel. His shoulders are hunched over, clumps of hair are sticking out at odd angles, and the former dark grey and white face paint is smeared to a light grey disaster. The troll slowly sips the questionable concoction as he stares at the drink you haven’t touched. The disheveled grey hulk yawns, his tongue is a purplish blue. Why does that seem to be important? You recall the still unpleasant goo plastered on between your thighs.

Oh.

That’s why.

Your name isn’t Bro Strider, its Captain Kirk of the starship Enterprise. You have explored an unknown land, encountered an alien, wooed said alien with your human swagger, plied it with your liquor, and fucked it. Well got some serious frottage time with a tentadick to be precise. The fair grey alien you deflowered is making that grumbling clicking noise again. You raise your eyebrows. The troll points a claw at the mug and clicks. You glance back down at the cup. The contents somehow manage to look even less appealing. You make your own clicking noise. The hungover horned wonder huffs. This shit looks vile. You huff back. The troll squints. You return the squint. It is now an official squint off. Too late to buy tickets cause this shit is going down now. 

“Drink it.”

“No.”

“Drink it.”

“No.”

“Imbibe the liquid.”

“I will do no such thing.” 

“Driiiiinnnnnkkk iiittt.”

“Noooope.”

“Meat sack.”

“Yes Attila the Troll.”

“Why are you being such a motherfucking shit? Just drink it.”

“I’m not drinking this vile concoction, just because you thrust it at me.”

“Stribro just drink it.”

“No dude, not gonna happen.”

“Bro.”

“Dude.”

“Brooo.”

“Duuude.”

“Bro.”

“No.”

“Mother fuck just drink it. Settle your thinkpan and fix that shit. It’s too motherfucking bright, and I am too motherfucking sober to be dealing with this hoofbeast shit.” You blink at him a few times before looking back down at the now cold sludge in a cup.

“It’ll help my hangover?”

“It will calm your horns.”

“I don’t have horns.” 

“Then it will calm your fleshy chest nubs since they seem to have a similar sensitivity.”

“It will calm my tits?”

“If that’s what you call them then yes. It will calm your tits.” 

You snort. Makara takes a step back. “No, no, I’m not going to blow chunks.” You snicker. “You said it would calm my tits.” The troll goes from looking alarmed back to agitated.

“You diurnal bulge humper this is your motherfucking bubble, do something about your infernal glowing ball of pain in my horns.” Wait a second.

“Makara.”

“What meat sack?”

“You made this rancid sludge right?” The troll nods. “How?”

“I thought of the drink first, but it didn’t motherfucking taste right so then I thought of the ingredients and then” the troll pauses and stares down at his cup. He makes yet another clicking noise and promptly face palms. “I changed your motherfucking bubble. We didn’t have to have this motherfucking conversation. I could have just wished for it to be motherfucking dark outside my fucking self.” Makara continues to grumble to himself as he turns towards the window and glares at it. The harsh morning sunshine hastily gives way to the dark blessed night. The troll murmurs something that vaguely sounds like ‘bout motherfucking time’ and shuffles over to where you are sprawled out on the futon. He takes the container of questionable ooze out of your hands and set it along with his mug on the coffee table. 

“Stribro.”

“Hmmph?”

“Stribrooo.”

“What?”

“Move over.” Now it’s your turn to squint annoyed. 

“You probably can’t see this, but I’m glaring at you.”

“I can see in the dark, I’m nocturnal you fragile pink fleshy fuck.” The troll is nocturnal. Shit, his eyes were probably blistering. If the burning ball of fuck your afterlife was wreaking havoc on your headache, then how fucking bad did he have it? No wonder the bastard was so persistent on your getting your shit together. Maybe you didn’t have to be so … well you. “Stribro.” You sigh and scoot closer to the edge of the futon. Makara takes the hint and climbs in. You tell yourself that the only reason you are letting him be the big spoon is to make up for the fact that you were a total dick to him earlier. It has nothing to do with how his arms feel wrapped around you. Absolutely nothing at all.


	3. Not What You Expected

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Do not surprise sleeping trolls.

This is just… you don’t know what this is. This isn’t on the level of that one thing you did in Mexico, which was actually a conglomeration of multiple things that took course over a period of twelve hours, which you swore to yourself to never think about again. Oops you thought about it. Seriously you’ve managed to perform a dirty deed that you are even hesitant to admit too. But several years, plane flights and strategically placed computer viruses later all copies of the video are out of circulation. Let’s wrangle this tangent back in Strider. This… this here… this action that you are about to willingly take part of…this beats that thing in Mexico. Easy. The phrase may you live in interesting times pops comes to mind as your hand inches closer at a recently thawed out prehistoric snail’s pace. Up until this moment you did not fully grasp why the Chinese considered it to be a curse. Now you comprehend that curse to its fullest. Shit’s getting all kinds of interesting in here. You are the infamous, the notorious, the sick beat dropping wielder of lyrical bliss, the smuppet creating plush rump maestro. Your name is Bro Strider and you are about to engage in nonsexual contact with another sentient being. 

“Shooooosh.” Pap pap pap. You turn your attention away from the unconscious yet still snarling twelve foot behemoth that’s doing his best impression of a coiled spring constructed out of murderous solid muscle to the petite troll currently trapped in his clutches. The red clad damsel in distress just sounded like she hacked up a lung, or whatever organ is relegated to gas exchange. Her plan is not working.

“Thisisn’tworkingyou’regoingtohaveto,” wheeze, “trysomethingelse.”

Pap.Pap.Pap. “I could cut his arm off.”

Hack. That sounded like the other lung. “Thatwouldonlypisshimoff. The whole point,” gasp, “is to calm,” gasp, “him down. Thinkcalmingthoughts.” Grimacing worse than Dave when you “lost” the remote during a My Little Pony marathon is probably not contributing to your situation. Calming, you are going to make chamomile look like red bull. You creep closer to the snaggle of sharp pointy dental doom and place a hand flat on the raging sleepwalker’s painted mug. 

“Shoooooosh.” Pap. Pap. “Shooooosh.” Pap. Pap. Pap. You are never getting the grease paint out of these gloves. One white eye snaps open while you are in mid shoosh and is followed by the other with alarming alacrity. The pair of blank eyes just stares at the hand resting on its cheekbone and then slowly trails down the arm connected to the offending hand to you. You and Attila the troll look at each other for several excruciatingly long seconds. 

“Human. Strider, were you,” the Grand Highblood’s brows furrow as he contemplates the sheer absurdity of what he is about to ask you, “ATTEMPTING TO SHOOSHPAP ME?”

“Yep.”

The troll ponders for a moment. “Your shame globes must be massive and made of an alloy more resilient than the armor on the Condescension’s battleship.” Makara pauses. “You have no MOTHERFUCKING FEAR OF ME do you?”

You shrug. “I’m already dead.”

The troll smiles broadly. Why intergalactic conqueror of planets and enslaver of entire races what big teeth you have. “There are always worse fates than death.”  
You raise his smile a smirk. “Before we get into a metaphorical dick measuring contest you need to release the little lady.” Makara’s attention snaps to the young troll still firmly entrapped in his iron grip. She goes ridged as the behemoth examines her from the tip of her hood down to her dainty feet. 

“She has wings. Motherfucking miracles” the troll breathes. You are not exactly comfortable with the look on Makara’s face as he reaches up to one delicate shimmering wing with his free hand.

“Makara.”

“Hmmm?” He isn’t paying one iota of attention to you.

“Makara you want to see a real miracle? She has pupils. She’s alive.” The gargantuan troll peers into the significantly smaller troll’s eyes.

“A rustblood.” He chuckles. “Wiggler you are MOTHERFUCKING FAR FROM HOME.” You have a sinking feeling that this is not going to end well. 

“Makara don’t do anything fucking stupid. I have questions I want to ask her.”

“You will get your answers meat sack. I HAVE CENTURIES WORTH OF EXPERIENCE GETTING ANSWERS.” And that’s your cue. You equip your katana and press the blade against the deranged troll’s throat, not hard enough to slice through his skin but enough that he can feel it.

“Chucklefuck let’s get one thing fucking settled right now. I don’t give a flying fuck who you used to be, what planet you’re from, or how shit used to work there. There is shit that just doesn’t fly with me and torturing someone is on the top of the list. Harm her and I will fucking end you.” The troll produces this low rumbling sound that seems to be the bastard child of a swarm of locust and a diesel engine starting in winter. This motherfucker is laughing at you. 

“END ME? You FRAGILE HORNLESS CLAWLESS PINK FLESHY CREATURE, you will END ME?” His vacant eyes frolic in amusement. “Thousands have tried. All have MOTHERFUCKING FAILED. I could use a laugh.”

You snort. “Consider this a fucking embossed invitation to the ball Prince. Time for me to teach your royal carcass how to dance.” 

“Mister Strider I’m going to apologize in advance for what I’m about to do.” You whip your head back to the troll in red.

“Apologize for what?”

“Killing you.”

“Huh?”

For a fraction of second existence is enveloped in a blinding white light and then it all goes black.


	4. There’s Sick, Twisted, and Then There is Just Wrong

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aradia has had enough and Bro gets a glimpse of what goes on in the Grand Highblood's mind.

Fuck it all. 

Fuck.

It.

All.

To.

Hell. 

The searing pain that permeates your entire body like a good marinade is soon joined by a skin peeling sensation. You wrench your screaming eye balls open and discover that the red fairy troll is dragging you by the ankles. How did you ever figure out that I wanted my back exfoliated with razor blade rock shards? That is so fucking thoughtful of you. Guess a flash incineration wasn’t enough for her. She unceremoniously drops your legs after a few more tugs across the smoldering ruins of your apartment. You let your head roll to the right. She drug your corpse alongside the psychotic fuck who is muttering what you can only guess is a mobius strip of obscenities. From the vehemence of the vulgar ramblings it seems like the chucklefuck caught the brunt of the explosion. You smirk and roll your head back to look up at the firecracker that blew your carcass up. 

The troll fairy has her arms folded across her chest and is glaring down at the two of you. Her expression just screams I’m running out of fucks to give and I was planning on using those fucks for something important but I had to waste my precious fucks on your dumbasses. Her dark red eyes lock onto Makara and what he does is highly unexpected. He immediately shuts the fuck up. Now that is impressive. Her eyes snap over to you. It’s the look of ‘do you want to say something? Well do yah punk?’ You shake your head no as you contemplate why the petite troll is emulating Dirty Harry in your mind. 

“I’ve had enough of this hoofbeast shit. I highly doubt that either of you are capable of moving given the fact that I just vaporized your sorry corpses. I want to make this abundantly clear, if either of you even think of moving or speaking I won’t hesitate to rip you apart at the molecular level. As a psychic” the thoroughly peeved troll shoots Makara a particularly scathing look “maroon blooded troll I can do that. Also as the Maid of Time I can slow down the flow of time around you so that you feel each and every excruciatingly painful moment in exquisite detail. And if you still have failed to learn your lesson I can rewind time and make you relive getting torn apart down to your most basic components until I am satisfied that you have learned not to fuck with me. I have reached godtier. I am a god. Let me assure you that the Mirthful Messiahs and whatever deity you human’s worship can’t help you here. And they will not be able to save you from me if you piss me off. Do you understand?” She glares down at the both of you before face palming. “You’re allowed to nod” she mutters. You and Makara nod wide-eyed.

“Great!” She smiles and claps her hands together while rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet. “I just want to let you know that I’m not usually a mean troll. No, I’m a nice troll; a nice, pleasant, friendly troll! I came to this memory bubble with good intentions. I want to welcome you to the afterlife and answer any questions that you might have. My job if you will is to act as a guide to the deceased on their journey. All I want to do is help you!” The troll’s maroon eyes narrow to slits. Her tone changes from bubbly back to I will rip your intestines out and force feed them to you. “But, we know how that turned out.” She pauses for a moment and reverts back to bubbly excitement. “So I’m going to leave now and spend some quality pile time with my moirail to calm down before I give into my urges to kill you again. While I’m away you two need to work out your differences, how, I really don’t care, but do it. Kill each other a couple of times maybe that will help you two settle things. Any who, after I’m sufficiently relaxed to the point where I’m not going to give into temptation and horribly mutilate the both of you I’ll come back and we can try this again, only this time with more talking about the state of what’s left of existence and with less threats of torture!” The fairy troll giggles before flying off.

You ease yourself into a hunched over sitting position and turn to Makara. The painted bastard has a dreamy grin plastered across his face. Consider yourself unsettled. The troll in red you could deal with. She had a completely legitimate reason to be livid and threaten you and Attila with new and exotic forms of torture. Not many people would take kindly to being slowly crushed to death while two idiots bickered over which one had the larger metaphorical stick. But Makara, Makara looks like a teenage girl who just found out that the hottest guy in school wants to take her to prom. 

“I wonder if she has a kismesis.” Attila chirps a sigh as he crosses his arms underneath his head and stares up at the slowly encroaching dawn. What’s a kismesis? You sit and wait for context clues. “Not killing your kismesis is the MOTHERFUCKING PRIMARY TENENT of a good kismesisitude, but when you start off with KILLING SOMEONE WHEN YOU KNOW THEY WON’T STAY DEAD… that is just… the most MOTHERFUCKING SUBLIME WAY to initiate a black romance.” Romance? “And then the little rustblood threatened me with such a delicious description of torture … She THREATENED ME. No troll has threatened me like that since…” he chuckles “since the LAST WINGED FILTHBLOOD that I came across.” Wait a second. “I never thought that I would discover another that I found so … THRILLING.” Yep, Makara is horns deep in his fantasy world. “Motherfucking miracles. She has wings, she’s a warm blood, she’s female but I can make an MOTHERFUCKING EXCEPTION, however she still is motherfucking TINY…” What does her being tiny have to do with … oh. 

You put two and two together. You did not want to put two and two together. Nope, nope, hells no, fuck no. You are the conductor on the express train to No-ville. A bitter taste fills your mouth. Yep, you just threw up a little. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” The troll glances over to you. “No, I have a gut instinct that the ‘what the fuck isn’t wrong with you’ list is shorter.” 

The troll clicks dismissively. “I wouldn’t expect a race of pink flesh bags to be able to fully grasp the MOTHERFUCKING COMPLEXITIES associated with black romance.” 

“I don’t see what’s so fucking complex about you getting off thinking about a little girl killing you. You are just fucked in the head.” Makara looks like a diehard Trekkie who you just admitted to that Spock is your favorite Star Wars character. You smirk. The Grand Highblood responds by lunging. You dodge. He growls in frustration and flings a boulder at you. You slice it in half and crook a finger, beckoning the behemoth to come within your blade’s reach. A toothy grin splits his face. He gleefully cackles before charging at you on all fours. The psychotic troll leaps when he’s within a few yards of you and whips out a blood splattered spiked club. You block the multihued mace and lock eyes with him as his weapon grinds against your sword. 

“Have you ever felt the deepest pitch broil in your bloodpusher at the mere thought of another? Of what bloody miracles they could bestow on you? Have you? Strider?” The troll hissed.

“I feel that my delicate constitution cannot stand against the barrage of your whispered sweet nothings” you mock. 

“Do you feel it?” 

“No” you deadpan. Makara stashes his club away and glances over to the horizon.

“What is your Lolita back already?” The troll is frozen. “Makara?”

“It’s the sun.” he murmurs. 

“So the sun is rising. I’m failing to see why this natural phenomenon has you enraptured.” 

Suddenly the world is on fire.

“RUN MOTHERFUCKER” Makara bellows as a massive hand flings you over his shoulder and he takes off in a full out sprint to his sprawling castle.


	5. Questions You Don't Want Answered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bro and GH build a pile and talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a bit more questionable than the others so for the squeamish you might want to skip it. Warnings: descriptions of the stages of burns, a pile of corpses, and implied necrophilia.

You have a sneaking suspicion that the something or someone out there just doesn’t like your ass. 

“Now you really are a PINK FLESHY MEATSACK” Makara chortles. Well at least one sentient fuck was having a good time. Your lack of a “good time” consists of gingerly picking off strips of peeling skin that got roasted by the glowing ball of fuck your existence in the poorly lit innards of the castle. Yesterday, what you assume was yesterday, you had crossed the vast expanse of desert relatively unharmed. But today that jaunt left your formerly pale skin flirting with a first degree burn. Welcome to the afterlife where nothing makes sense and the points don’t matter.

“How…?” 

“Trolls are nocturnal.” Right answer to the wrong question.

“Not that.” Or maybe that is the answer you muse. The flesh fryer outside sure as hell isn’t the bright globe of radiation that you remember from back home. Maybe it isn’t your sun. “Makara,” you hear a faint metallic pop and get a pungent whiff of chemicals, “is that the reason why you like creeping around in the fucking dark?” The troll shoots a you can’t be that fucking stupid look. 

“It is a MOTHERFUCKING CUSTOMARY FORM OF EXECUTION to strap criminals to posts and let the radiating sphere ROAST THE LITTLE SHITS ALIVE. First the outermost layers of skin burn causing the grey skin to turn to the motherfucker’s blood color. After the color change blisters start to form on the outer layers of skin followed by the middle layer, the majority of SHITBLOODS DIE DURING THIS STAGE. Some of the sludgebloods make it to the next stage when the COOKED LAYERS START TO PEEL AWAY IN STRIPS. But I’ve only seen a few self righteous frigid bloods last until chunks of their flesh start falling away from the bone. The fish last the longest but that’s only because the MOTHERFUCKERS HAVE TO DRY OUT FIRST before they start cooking.” The troll takes a break from his disturbing soliloquy to stare down at you. “I SURVIVED THE SECOND STAGE BEFORE, you seem to be just starting stage one.” How comforting. Makara thrusts out a tin. You give him a questioning look. “Burn salve?” 

The alien salve is the best thing to happen to you today, the thick cream cools your seared skin with a welcomed alacrity and the strong menthol like scent drowns out what you can only surmise is the smell of burnt troll flesh and other rancid odors that you feel no need to determine the source of while you are stuck in the ruined heap of the castle. You finish up with the tin and slide it across the floor back to the troll before leaning back against the chilled stone wall. 

“Is this your home world?”

“We are in a memory of a battle that I once took part in centuries ago.”

“Where are…?” The troll’s deep rumbling diesel engine laughter cuts you off.

“All of the combatants?” He chuckles. “I CULLED THEM.”

“Then why isn’t your doorstep strewn with corpses if you’ve killed them all?” You see a quick flash of Makara’s fangs. He crosses his arms and uses them for a pillow. 

“I told you already motherfucker. TROLLS GRAVITATE TO PILES.” You’ve just won the guess that smell game. 

“So you’ve been sleeping on a pile of dead bodies?”

“Yep, it’s about time to change the pile though, the BATCH OF MOTHERFUCKERS I have now are starting to rot.”That explains the bits and pieces that you found tangled up in his mass of hair. Nice.

“Is that… normal for trolls?”

“No. Most trolls find it MOTHERFUCKING REPULSIVE. HOARDING DEAD THINGS is more of a Capricorn trait.” The troll pauses for a moment before continuing on. “But the colorful wriggler toy pile at your hive was MOTHERFUCKING BITCHTITS.” Makara stands up and starts wandering down the corridor to the throne room. After a few steps he halts, turns around and waits. Sure Strider go and follow the bat-shit crazy alien into a dark room to his stash of corpses. That sounds like a fan-fucking-tastic idea. The troll is still waiting. How bad can it really be? You cave and follow the troll.

It’s not as bad as you thought it would be. It’s worse. The smell is rank and you are downright thankful that the lighting in the room is shitty. 

“Stop being such a FUCKING WRIGGLER, it’s only a pile of dead bodies.” You cock and eyebrow and glance over to the troll.

“Dude the fuckers skipped the corpse stage and went straight to paste. We are going to need a shovel and a bucket.” Makara goes silent.

“Well the motherfuckers aren’t that far gone and it’s NOT LIKE WE DON’T HAVE THE TIME… If you don’t mind then I don’t.” 

“Fuck the bucket” you mutter as you visualize the fetid pile outside the castle. The organic blob vanishes leaving a residue film. 

“Or we can DO IT ON THE FLOOR, might want to find a drier spot though.” 

“Sounds good, you don’t want corpse juice all over your junk.” The troll clicks in agreement and the pair of you scan the floor for a dry spot. When you find one you rifle through your sylladex and pull out a smuppet. You look over to Makara and see him fishing through his own sylladex. He pulls out a bucket. You stare at the bucket in his hand while he stares at the smuppet in yours. Why does it feel like you’re missing something important? 

“You wanna clean the floor before we do this?”

“Those aren’t WRIGGLER TOYS?” 

“They’re called smuppets.” An awkward silence lingers. “Didn’t you want to make a new pile?”

“Pile? YES. PILE.” Makara chucks the bucket back into his sylladex. Trolls are fucking weird. 

After repeated cajoling Makara convinces you to climb up the newly formed Mount Smuppet and lay down. Maybe there is a something to this whole pile thing. 

“Motherfucking bitchtits,” the troll signs as he wiggles deeper into the multi-hued plush puppet rumps. You nod in agreement. “So Strider what ushered you into the afterlife?”

“Got run through with my own sword. How did you kick the bucket?” Makara glances over with a puzzled look. Time to rephrase the question. “How did you die?”

“Don’t motherfucking know. One moment I’m on my ship the next I’m back on Alternia in a castle that hasn’t existed in hundreds of sweeps. All the fuckers I’ve met besides you and troll sis seem to be MEMORIES OF TROLLS THAT I’VE FOUGHT AGAINST IN THE WAR.” 

“You’ve spent the past two years fighting?”

“Fighting, Pailing, Painting, and Sleeping. There is a surprising amount of things you can do with a MOTHERFUCKING INFINITE supply of corpses.” Pails, buckets, maybe there was something you were missing.

“Pailing?”

“Why limit yourself to just your hand if you HAVE A BODY JUST LYING AROUND.” 

As a purveyor of puppet porn you’ve met people with a wide variety of kinks and fetishes, but never have you met someone into necrophilia. And now you have. Awesome sauce.


	6. Welcome to the Afterlife

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aradia, Bro and the Grand Highblood have a chat.

Makara is staring at you. Perhaps he is waiting with bated breath for a reply dripping with the snarky eloquence that only you can provide. You have checked the storeroom and found it sufficiently lacking snark. There are no stocked up witticisms relating to necrophilia. Shocking. Pedophilia, yes. Bestiality, yes. Yiff, yes. Water sports, yes. Scat, yes. S&M, yes. Bondage, yes. Stuffing, yes. Incest, yes. Puppets, fuck yes. Necrophilia, a resounding no. This travesty cannot stand. The alien laying next to you on the massive assortment of rainbow colored felt puppets that you design and produce for recreational purposes that may or may not center around your dick, fucks dead bodies. He gets his rocks off with the aid of a cold slab of meat. The corpses weren’t exactly fresh either. Like that would make much of a difference, necrophilia is necrophilia, but that doesn’t mean the alien shouldn’t be a bit pickier about what he fucks. Or is it technically necrophilia? He is dead fucking someone else who is also dead. Does the fact that he is still ambulatory factor that much into the creepy fucker equation? And if it does what if the object of his hentai inspired affection is a zombie? Aliens with a tentacle for a dick fucking zombies, now that’s a niche market. 

“Are you preparing for a corpse party? I saw the pile of corpses outside of the castle!” The fairy troll has returned and is babbling on about some festive event. “I have never attended a human corpse party before and am not quite familiar with the customs and procedures that accompany such an event. On Alternia the bodies of the deceased are usually left to rot in the sun, so we lack any traditions that relate to the handling and burial of our dead.” All of the bubbling troll’s focus is locked onto you. Trolls need to stop expecting answers from you in regards to their fixation with corpses. Makara has ceased leering at the petite troll like a creepy uncle at a family reunion and has turned his attention to you as well, figures if it’s got a carcass involved it would pique his interest. 

“Trollicita are you rambling on about a funeral?” How her grin manages to get wider eludes you, but she is full on beaming as she nods. “Funerals are held for relatives and the conglomeration of organic waste outside is just the aftermath of chucklefuck here going on a rampage, so I’m not gonna go and hold a party for a bunch of dead aliens that I don’t know.” She looks crestfallen and Makara seems a bit disappointed. 

“So what are you planning on doing with the bodies?”

“Well it was his pile of his bodies,” you thumb over to the creature next to you, “to begin with so it’s up to him.” She glances over to the larger troll. He dashes her hopes swiftly.

“Let the motherfuckers rot.” 

She audibly sighs at his response. “If there isn’t going to be a celebration of one’s passing into the afterlife then I should just go on with the reason why I came here and that is to welcome you to the afterlife!” With a clap of her hands her grin returns. “My name is Aradia and I will be your guide. I’m here to answer any of your questions. So feel free to ask away!” It’s a Mexican standoff of awkward glances without any Mexicans. Aradia glances over to you; you look over to Makara who has resumed leering at the pedobait. Her eyes flit over to the grinning troll and her smile slowly starts to fade. She clasps her hands together. “So any questions? Any at all?”

“Do you HAVE A KISMESIS?” The young troll’s face whips through every expression from confusion, shock, horror, and revulsion in nanoseconds. The montage of facial expression ends in dry heaving. Chucklefuck’s grin increases with the number of retches. 

“No! No. Not with you. Not with any… just no. You are a foul, revolting, vile, putrid, violent, insane, whimsical creature that only knows how to make other trolls pray for the sweet release of death.”If Makara was a puppy his tail would have beat a hole into the floor. She quickly realizes her mistake. “Oh Gl'bgolyb you think I’m flirting with you.” She fists her hair and starts wandering around the chamber in a circle. “Sollux warned me. He warned me not to come back here. This is what I get for not listening to my moirail…” she trails off into a stream of muttering. 

“Fairy Troll I got a query for yah.” She stops muttering and looks up to you. 

“A question? Yes I can answer your question.”

“Where are we?” She releases the death grip on her hair as her face lights up. “We are in a memory bubble! And not just any memory bubble, this one is quite special! Unique in fact! I’ve never seen one like this since I took on this role.” 

“What makes this bubble so motherfucking special?” 

“Well, usually when two memory bubbles come into contact they can join for a short while if the inhabitants of the two bubbles want to interact. If the inhabitants do not want to visit with each other then the bubbles will just pass through one another. Also the inhabitants can choose to leave their memory bubble to spend a prolonged amount of time with another inhabitant in their bubble. In both cases the two bubbles stay intact. But your case is different!”

“Different how?” You are all over being a uniquely fucked up snowflake, however this “different” does not sit well with you.

The troll giggles nervously. “First Mr. Strider…”

“Call me Bro” you deadpan.

“Okay Bro! Well Bro, your bubble has been completely stationary since you’ve entered the afterlife. That in itself is highly unusual since bubbles aimlessly float through space. Also your bubble had an impenetrable barrier surrounding it. It was if you had cut yourself off from the rest of existence. The Grand Highblood’s bubble on the other hand has been circling the other bubbles in an almost predatory fashion. When the Grand Highblood’s bubble entered your bubble’s region of space your bubble started to move! In fact both for your bubbles sped up on a collision course and ended up colliding!”

“The meat sack and I have figured that MOTHERFUCKING FACT OUT OURSELVES troll sis. So how about you enlighten us on the miracles we are not privy to as of yet.”

“Two bubbles have never collided with such force before.” Aradia starts nibbling on her lower lip.

“AND?”

“now there is only one bubble” she murmurs. 

“SPEAK UP WRIGGLER.”

“Now there is only one bubble.” She pauses. “There were two. But now there is only one, and I can’t find the second one. So… you might be stuck with one another for the rest of time.” You and Makara exchange worried glances. “I know the two of you seem apprehensive about this but just look on the bright side! Neither of you will have to spend the rest of eternity alone!” 

Eternity is a long fucking time.

“Fate has brought the two of you together and it must be for a reason. Both of you are incredibly emotionally stunted individuals and your previous bubbles reflected it. Bro you just isolate yourself from everyone, and Grand Highblood you solve your issues with culling. Neither action is a healthy coping mechanism so you can take this chance that fate has given you and use this opportunity to improve yourselves!” You are Makara are dead silent. “Or you can look at it this way; the force behind the destruction of both of your universes is actively destroying the rest of existence as we speak. The fate of literally everything rests in the hands of eight teenagers, a few living troll wrigglers, a few dead troll wrigglers, and a collection of dead trolls that already messed up their chance at saving their universe! So if you two really don’t like the idea of staying together it’s ok because it is highly probable that everything will come to a very permanent end at any moment!”

“So we could be stuck with each other for another five minutes or for the rest of eternity?”

“Yep! Oh, and speaking of saving existence from an almost sure destruction at the hand of an unbeatable foe, I need to leave and get back to saving existence! So I’ll leave you two to take that all in. Bye!”

Aradia leaves. Makara drums his fingers on his knees and looks over to you.

“So… motherfucking eternity…”

“Yeah. Eternity.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What was originally supposed to be two chapters ended up stretching out to six. Oops. Thanks for sticking around this long. Soon your patience will be rewarded with actual stuff happening! Woot!


	7. And You Thought You Were the Normal One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stuff happens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't want to ruin anything for anyone so I'll update the tags in a few days. I'm interested in hearing what you all think about the series and the characters so hit me up at bettername.tumblr.com.

One rebuilt apartment, a two hour long shower, a clean white polo shirt, black jeans, orange baseball cap, and a pair of kamina shade later you are starting to feel some semblance of humanity for the first time in days. Showers are your sacred ritual and oh how the once righteous have sinned. Filthy is an adjective that should only be used to refer to your mind not your body. But after polishing off a bottle of body-wash and doing unspeakable things to an already abused pink Hello Kitty bath poof you permit yourself to reenter polite company. And the only company that you want is with your main man who is glaring at you from his perch on the back of the futon. You gnaw on your bottom lip. Cal is pissed. He has every reason to be upset with you. You just up and left him all alone while you went out gallivanting around the desert, you didn’t even ask if he wanted to tag along. Then you brought back home an alien without telling him, you didn’t introduce them like you do with your other guests. He had to witness your drunken xeno exploits with a total stranger. And to top all off you are a bit responsible for him getting vaporized along with the rest of the apartment. You are going to have to apologize like you have never apologized before. Time to take this verbal ass whoopin like a man. You mince over to the futon and gingerly take a seat.

“Hey Cal.” He isn’t looking at you. This might be worse than you thought. “I know that you’re upset with me and I deserve it. Colliding with another bubble and getting a new neighbor is no excuse for treating you the way that I did. I shouldn’t have ignored you like that bro. I’m sorry.” You remove your hat and try to resist the urge to fidget with the brim while you wait for his reply. It takes a few moments but Cal eventually slides down the back of the futon and lands with a plop next to you. He is looking directly at you and you can’t help but get your hopes up. “Do you forgive me?” He does. You scoop him up in a hug and his arms drape around your shoulders. “You’re the best friend a guy could ask for Cal. There’s just so much that I need to talk to you about…” 

“MOTHERFUCK…” You put your bro hug on pause. The bewildered troll standing in your doorway is attempting to furtively glance between you and Cal, and failing miserably at it. 

“Little man is right I haven’t introduced you two yet. Cal this is Makara the new neighbor that I mentioned earlier. Makara this is my main man Cal.” The troll stares at Cal like he’s a bomb about to hit zero. Cal for his part seems a bit apprehensive about horned grey behemoth blocking the entrance to the apartment. The little fairy troll said that there was a good chance that all of you were going to be stuck together for an extraordinarily long long time, so it’s essential that everyone gets along. “Hey Makara give us a minute.” 

“Sure motherfucker.”

“Cool bro.” Makara keeps his post as you take Cal into the kitchen to get some privacy. “He’s an alien, I know crazy right?” You snort. Cal is so fucking hilarious. “They do look like candy corn.” He is always playing his A game. “No I don’t know if his horns were made in 1910 with the rest of it.” Dude just spits gold out of his mouth. “Ok, seriously bro the troll isn’t that bad. Well not bad if you don’t have a raging aversion to dudes that sleep on piles of dead shit. I shit you not. Behind his throne literally made out of the skulls and bones of his dispatched enemies there was this heaping pile of rotting carcasses that he used to sleep on. Do you promise not to get grossed out?” Cal promises. Dude’s good for it, he never breaks a promise. “He also used them for recreational purposes.” Cal is not the least bit surprised. “So you think that necrophilia is just the tip of the fucked up iceberg? We are going to have more than enough time to figure that out bro. Why? I’m going to set it out for you. This little chick troll fluttered in and said that the big troll’s and our bubbles collided and now there’s a good chance that we are all going to be stuck together for the rest of eternity.” You huff. “Yeah I’m not thrilled but we got to keep striding. Cool bro?” Cal can roll with the punches like a champ. “Of course you’re cool with it. Time to get this fiesta kicked into gear.” You and Cal stroll over to Makara who is still eying your bro warily.

“It motherfucking talks to you?”

“Look, dude, first of all he’s not an it, his name is Cal and both of us would appreciate it if you called him by his name.” 

“Cal is his title? I can refer to him as such.”

“Cal says he appreciates your cooperation and as a gesture of goodwill for your first meeting he would like to extend the sacred fist bump of Brohood.” Makara peels his eyes off of your bro and glances up to you.

“FIST BUMP?”

“Should have known that you wouldn’t know.” You demonstrate proper fist bump protocol with Cal. The troll nods and gingerly taps his knuckles against Cal’s fist. “And thus the sacred ritual of the fist bump of Brohood has been completed you are now on your way to becoming bros.”

“Strider?”

“Yeah?”

“We have not performed this BROHOOD RITUAL.”

“Cal’s a chill dude, he gets along with everyone. It takes me longer to warm up to people, trolls, anything.” You set Cal on the futon to chill out and walk back over to the waiting troll. 

“Strider. Cal talks to you?”

“Of course he does.”

Makara pauses while he mulls over what he is going to say next. “Is he an emissary of the HORROR TERRORS? Because I know that they choose not to converse with EVERY MOTHERFUCKER out there.” 

“What do you mean by emissary of the horror terrors?” 

“You can hear him but I can’t so I was just wondering if he’s an EMISSARY OF THE HORROR TERRORS. He does not share ANY OTHER CHARACTERISTICS with the other emissary that I know. Gl'bgolyb is a mass of tentacles the SIZE OF A SMALL MOTHERFUCKING MOON and resides in the oceans of Alternia. However, only the Condescension and heiresses could commune with it.” You were in a good mood seeing Cal get along with Makara so well, but this fucker just harshed the fuck out of your mellow. 

“What the fuck are you saying?”

“Your species is not aware of the HORROR TERRORS?” You shake your head no very fucking slowly. “The horror terrors are the creatures that live in the vast void that exists between universes. They are the beings that are responsible for the VISIONS OF DEATH, DESTRUCTION AND DESPAIR that afflict all of troll kind. They are the IMPETUS OF ALL VIOLENCE on Alternia. They are the source of the voices that fuel Capricorns to SMITE THOSE THAT HAVE BEEN DECLARED UNWORTHY of a continuing existence. They are the ones that drive us to PAINT MURALS WITH THE MOTHERFUCKING BLOOD OF THE FALLEN as tribute.”

“Are you comparing Cal to Cthulhu?”

“You sure you haven’t heard of the MOTHERFUCKING HORROR TERRORS?”

You point to the door. “Out.” Makara mutters to himself as he wanders out of the apartment. You glance over to Cal. “Aliens.”

 

Makara squirms deeper into his mountain of multi-hued felt abominations in the center of his throne room. 

“Then the pink fleshy fuck gives me this look like I JUST IMPALED HIS FUCKING LUSCUS. All I asked this motherfucker was if this Cal was an EMISSARY TO THE HORROR TERRORS since he had a conversation with him in the nutrition block. I could hear EVERY FUCKING WORD even though the meat sack was whispering away like a squeak beast. Oh and the fucker has never heard of the HORROR TERRORS. What fucking species hasn’t heard of the HORROR TERRORS? They are the MOTHERFUCKING HORROR TERRORS. So I tried to explain what they are and during the whole time guess what was screaming in my think pan to PAINT THE WALLS with his nonbelieving blood? You’re right, the MOTHERFUCKING HORROR TERRORS.” The troll sighs. “No, the human will not take me allowing him to live as a sign of weakness. If he does then I’LL JUST EVISCERATE him.” Makara pauses and looks to the skull resting in his hands. “I don’t find the flesh bag more infuriating that you. He’s not going to replace you as my kismesis. No one is.” He lifts the bleached skull to his lips and places a kiss on the forehead before pulling it close to him and wrapping his arms around the long horns. “Have a good rest Nitram.”

 

Just outside of the bubble one troll turns to face his companion. 

“Wow AA, just wow.” 

“So?” The winged troll grins.

“I lost the bet fair and square. I’ll help you out.”


	8. I Smell Sex and Candy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stalker this is your warning. This might be funny.

“Makara” you growl. The troll stares at you, one clawed foot in the rust desert and the other precariously hovering over the threshold of your apartment. The grey shit smirks, his blood stained fangs matching up with the painted fangs haphazardly smeared around his maw. His foot begins an excruciatingly slow descent to the innocent carpet below. “Troll” your voice drops another octave. The monstrosity’s foot halts mere millimeters away from the floor. 

“Human” he sneers. 

“I warned you bro.” You shift your weight onto your back foot. The troll notices the subtle change in stance. You notice the troll noticing. The troll notices you noticing that he noticed the subtle change in your weight distribution. The diesel engine that is this bastard’s laugh roars to life as his blank eyes widen in maniacal glee. Some trolls just want to watch the universe burn. 

“I KNOW BRO.” Makara smiles revealing a slew of awaiting death. Your face remains expressionless. A claw tip touches the end of a tuft of yarn. You unsheathe your sword as you lunge towards the door. The blade slices through the air and gets stuck in the doorframe. You stop and stare at the blade lodged in the wood. You missed. You don’t miss. What the fuck? A rasping snicker behind you rouses you from your confusion. Out of your periphery you see an object rocketing towards your head. You whip around slicing through the missile. A mutilated smuppet falls to the floor in slow motion. The stuffing bulges out of the gaping wound. The horror, the horror. 

“Peppermint.” Your death will not be in vain my old friend. You look over the top of your shades and lock eyes with the smirking troll reclining in the smuppet pile. “Take a fucking shower before you contaminate my apartment” you hiss.

“MAKE ME motherfucker.” 

Challenge accepted. 

You want the troll to stop making your apartment smell like the inside of a hearse. However, the troll will not willingly take a shower on his own. And the troll will not willingly enter the bathroom; the hapless door frame looks like you tried to shove a giant cat into a pet carrier. So you’ve turned to the old standby, The Anglerfish. You lean against the countertop in the kitchen and wait for the Faygo to work its magic. Patience is a virtue and you are as virtuous as Jesus Christ’s knocked up teenage mom. After a few minutes of silence the smuppet pile in the living room stirs. Two horn tips pop out of the mountain and push their way through the mound of plush rumps to face the liquid grape goodness. A grey hand clutching a two liter thrusts out of the pile before withdrawing back to the colorful felt confines. You lower lip twitches ever so slightly. Strider, did you forget that Makara can materialize anything that his twisted mind can invent besides sentient beings? Yes, yes you did forget the miracles of bubble magic. It takes every ounce of your will not to face palm right there and then. You will not let the troll bear witness to your shame. That shame is for you and you alone. You will savor that shame like a piece of already chewed gum that you keep under the bottom of your desk reserved for just these purposes. You will savor the fuck out of that gum in silence for it is your gum to chew. 

Enough waxing about your shame gum, it’s time to get creative. The preferred method to clean the troll, the shower, is just not going to happen. The water balloons proved to be an effective method of getting your apartment wet. Water guns lack force. So that leaves you with the kitchen sprayer. The water pressure is sufficient, the range is short enough to not soak any of your valuables, but that blessing is also a curse. To use the sprayer attachment on the sink you have to lure him into range. Faygo had failed you. You need alternative bait, something that Makara cannot obtain by other means. A smirk flashes across your lips as you look at the multi-hued felt mound.

“What the motherfuck are those little colorful miracle bites?” You pop another candy into your mouth as Makara watches from the safety of the futon, his white eyes peeking over the back. 

“Skittles.” The troll continues to stare as you roll several in your palm before tossing them back. The troll squirms. He glances from the bag in your hand to the sink and returns to staring at the bag. “Want any?” Makara looks back over to the sink and shakes his head. “Are you sure you don’t want to … taste the rainbow?” The troll visibly squirms. For a fucker with severely limited impulse control he is handling temptation quite well. 

Wait spoke too soon. Makara vaults over the futon, sprints to the counter and snatches bag. Once the troll’s hand hits the bait you whip out the sprayer. A minuscule volume of water manages to hit the behemoth before he scampers up into the attic. You spend the next few minutes plotting a new strategy while listening to the troll scurry around your attic like a raccoon. The plan for luring the troll into range works, however you need to significantly increase the volume of water otherwise you’re going to run out of candies to bribe the troll with before he gets anywhere near passably clean. A strike of inspiration hits you. The answer to your dilemma is oh so clear. You get the plastic container out from underneath the sink and start filling it with soapy water. Once it is filled to the brim you hide your salvation and prepare the next batch of bait.

The troll peeks out from the slightly lowered attic door and sniffs. The door shuts. M & Ms are a no go, moving along. After several trials you have determined that the troll does not like peanut butter cups, kisses, Kit Kats, Twizzlers, neco wafers, smarties, spree and gum balls; or at least not enough to hazard getting soaked. Time for the heavy weaponry.

“I’mma little gummy bear, I’mma I’mma gummy bear.” The gummy bear dances over the countertop waving what his momma gave him. “I’mma I’mma gummy bear look at me go to and fro.” The troll’s eyes stay locked on you playing with your food. No one can resist the seduction of the gummy bear dance. “I’mma little gummy bear, I’mma I’mma gummy bear look at me go oh no!” You throw the gummy bear up in the air and ketch it in your mouth. Makara focus darts from you to the bag as you rustle through it. You pull out one of each flavor and line them up. Once you are satisfied with your candy conga line you glance up to and find the troll hovering just out of range of the sprayer in the living room. “We’re a little gummy bears, we’re a we’re a gummy bears.” You halt wiggling their gummy butts and Makara stops creeping closer to the counter. “We’re a we’re a gummy bears …” The troll is almost in range, “look at us go to and fro. We’re a little gummy bears. We’re a we’re a gummy bears look at us go oh no!” You toss the gummy bears at Makara, grab the handle of the container of water and unleash your soapy vengeance. 

The sudsy bastard is in shock. His eyes flicker from you, down to the bucket still tightly in your grasp and further down to the puddle on the linoleum. A lone gummy bear drops to the floor in slow motion. You glance up just in time to see Makara lunge, but not soon enough to do a damn thing about it. Two hundred pounds of muscle has you pinned against the kitchen floor grinding against you. One hand holds your wrist above your head; another is working its way up under your shirt. You squirm and find your legs held down firmly by the troll’s. 

“Strider as an alien I doubt that you understand the full MOTHERFUCKING DEPTH OF MEANING of your actions so I’m going to explain it to you.” The heavily breathing troll pauses to lick his lips. “Pails are used by my species for reproduction. What you did was the most MOTHERFUCKING SALACIOUS INVITATION to engage in reproductive activities besides stripping off all of your clothing, spreading your naked self out in my chamber, and writing pail me on your chest with your genetic material. Don’t fucking do that again unless you want me to THROW YOU UP ON THE NEAREST SURFACE AND PAIL YOU UNTIL I’M SATISFIED.”

Now seems a perfect opportunity to ask the burning question that has had your panties all lit up with curiosity. “So what are the pails for?”

“Reproduction.” 

You blankly stare at the troll. Time to rephrase the question. “What are the fucking pails for?”

“COLLECTING GRUB SAUCE.”

“Grub sauce?”

“Grub Batter, genetic material, slurry slime, wild wacky wriggler goo.”

You give the euphemisms for alien spunk a moment to roll around in your head. "Isn’t using a bucket bragging, like wearing a knee length kilt? Sure it might look impressive but everyone secretly thinks that you’re just overcompensating for something.” 

“If a troll does not SUCCESSFULLY FILL A BUCKET with either of their concupiscent quadrants at their ninth sweep they will be executed by an imperial drone.” 

“Guess swallowing isn’t big on Alternia” you mutter. “Alright bucket filler I need details on how the freak show in your pants leads to a new generation of horned fuckers.”

“You want MOTHERFUCKING DETAILS on troll reproduction?”

“It’s not like we don’t have the time.” 

Makara shrugs. “Trolls are hermaphroditic. My species has a BULGE” the troll grinds up against you, “and a NOOK. During the mating process one troll will insert their bulge into the other troll’s nook. Then once certain areas of the nook and bulge are STIMULATED ENOUGH both troll’s nook and bulges will RELEASE THEIR GENETIC MATERIAL into a waiting pail. The process is referred to as pailing since a PAIL IS INVOLVED. Once a sweep the IMPERIAL DRONES will come around and collect the filled pails. Each troll must have filled at least one pail with either their matesprit or kismesis or the DRONES WILL CULL THEM ON THE MOTHERFUCKING SPOT. After all of the pails have been collected the drones then FEED THE GRUB SAUCE to the mother grub. All of the genetic material mixes inside of the mother grub and she uses the RESULTING INCESTUOUS GENETIC SLURRY to fertilize eggs. It is paramount to wisely choose who you pail because grubs WILL ONLY BE  
FORMED FROM THE GENES of those who have a strong emotional connection.”

“And trolls pop out of eggs laid by this mother worm thing?”

“The mother grub lays the eggs in the brooding caverns. Grubs hatch out of the eggs. They are a troll’s larval stage, WE ALSO CALL THEM WRIGGLERS. The wrigglers that survive the trials of the brooding caverns are then adopted by a luscus. Grubs that DON’T SURVIVE THE TRIALS DIE, grubs that DON’T GET CHOSEN BY A LUSCUS DIE. The luscus raises the grub through its pupation to a troll and up until it reaches conscription. Trolls that DON’T GET CONSCRIPTED INTO THE FLEET DIE. After conscription at nine sweeps the troll still has a final pupation to undergo until they reach adulthood. The time of the final pupation depends on the caste; shitbloods and pissbloods pupate sooner than frigidbloods or water breathers because of their MOTHERFUCKING SHORT LIFE SPANS.” 

“That’s fucked up.”

The troll sharply clicks. “How does your wretched species INFEST YOUR MOTHERFUCKING PLANET?”

“I’ll lay it down for you. Humans are separated into bros and hoes. Bros have dicks, and hoes have pussies. So when a bro and hoe decide to make a brat the bro sticks his dick into the hoe’s puss. After some bump and grind the bro will squirt out a baby batter bomb into the hoe. Then the brat will form inside the hoe and eventually the little shit will get popped out and grow up into an adult.”

“It grows inside?” Makara cringes. 

“Yep.”

The troll looks horrified. “Your first stage is a motherfucking parasite” he whispers. Makara warily glances down at your crotch as he slowly eases himself up off of you and then walks backwards towards the door before bolting to safety.

That went well.


	9. With Friends Like These...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Moirail time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter sets up next chapter.  
> And...
> 
> Finals are Over! Mwahahahaaaa. Ok, now back to writing.

“Sol!”

“Yes AA.”

“You’re just staring at the memory bubble again. So is today the day that you will venture into the unexplored wonder that lies in wait for you?”

“Lies in wait” the yellow blood scoffs dryly. “AA you have no idea.”

The winged troll grins and gives the brooding troll a playful swat on the shoulder. “Sollux there’s no need to be so gloomy.”

“AA, evil lurks in that bubble” he whispers. “I might not hear the voices of the departed anymore, but I can still sense doom. All those that enter will be doomed, doomed to a fate so heinous that not even I can foretell.”

His companion giggles. “Gee Sollux from the way that you’re rambling on you make it seem like the personification of death is in there. It’s just the Grand Highblood’s bubble.”

“GH’s bubble?” A empty socket and a blank eye stare at her incredulously. “The Capricorn in that bubble is the Grand Highblood? That thing” the scrawny troll flails his arms at the bubble “is the thing that the horror terrors are made of.”

“Sollux calm down.”

“I’m not going to calm down AA. I am going to flip all of my shits. All of them!” he shrieks.

“Shoosh. Shoooosh. Don’t be such a wriggler. What’s the worst that could happen? He could make you all dead instead of just half dead!”

“AA, I’m starting to seriously doubt that you have the best intentions for me. Moirails aren’t supposed to get that excited that their moirail is going to become full dead.”

“Sollux as your moirail I only have the best of intentions for you.” The petite troll starts floating over to Sollux. And as your moirail I need to be there for you both to support…” 

“Why are you getting closer?”

“… and encourage…” She lowers her head. 

“AA?” The troll swallows thickly at the sight of the two curved horns and glances nervously to the bubble lurking behind him. 

“personal growth.” She speeds up to ramming speed hitting the hapless bastard square in the stomach and sending him reeling into the bubble.

“AAaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

POP.

“Shit gravity!” Sollux squeaks out as he starts plummeting to the desert below. He kicks his psionics into gear and hovers several meters off the rocky terrain. The yellow blood sighs after he catches his breath. “That was close.” The troll tilts his head. “What's that whistling sound?”

WHAM.


	10. Who Needs Enemies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> GH isn't a morning person and both bubble mates avoid talking about their severe emotional issues.

“Troll please, I’m Bro fucking Strider.” You saunter up to the gargantuan block wall that bisects the bubble as you unsheathe your katana. The scope of the troll’s toiling is impressive, but in vain nonetheless. His plans and contrivances serve only in urging you on. For your concern all of his efforts during the past month are nothing more than elaborate foreplay, a slow seduction in the form of a Rube Goldbergian cock block. However your quest is not driven by your actual desire to fuck the painted behemoth. No, your most sacred journey is based on principle. No one tells you no. And what did that fucker do? He told you no. He vehemently told you ‘no’ as he sprinted out of your apartment. The languid saunter morphs into a full out dive bomb as you unleash your unrighteous fury onto the unsuspecting rock. Shards of stone go flying as you execute a sublime fuck your shit roll which is topped off with a landing as smooth as your bountiful swag. You reequip your faithful blade as the obstacle crumbles. Wall? What wall? You smirk and brush the dust off your shoulder before continuing on to your intended target. 

You empty the contents of your sylladex out into a mound a few meters away from the side of the spiraling castle closest to the troll’s blood splattered throne room. Torturous hours were spent agonizing over your weapon of choice for this venture. You pick up a gleaming object for inspection. Once satisfied that it meets, no exceeds your demanding expectations you assume the proper pitching position and let fly. The sharp metallic clang of the bucket hitting the jagged stone structure brings a smile to your lips. Going with polished stainless steel instead of aluminum was a good decision. You pause, waiting for a reaction from the castle’s inhabitant. Several moments pass in silence before you pick up another bucket to continue the barrage. 

“One bucket. Ha ha ha.” Clang. “Two buckets. Ha ha ha.” It feels like an eternity has passed since you plopped down on the futon next to your lil bro and watched the Count do the numerical voodoo that he does so well. Clang. “Three buckets. Ha ha ha.” Now’s not the time to get all nostalgic. The lil dude is on his way to becoming his own man. Clang. You’ve spent all that time training him so that he doesn’t need you. “Four buckets. Ha. ha. ha.” Vampire smuppets now that’s an idea to flesh out. Clang. “Five…”

“MEAT SACK.” The troll’s bellowing is unmistakable even if diluted by a two foot thick wall of solid rock.

“Five buckets. Ha ha ha.” 

“I WILL EVISCERATE YOU AND STRANGLE YOU WITH YOUR OWN ENTRAILS.” Sounds like someone woke up on the wrong side of the bone pile. You surmise from the muffled swearing in the distance and the occasional grind and snap that the creature from the painted black lagoon is dragging his carcass out of his lair. The din of vulgarities diminishes momentarily as the behemoth trudges down the vast corridors. The volume increases as the creature crawls out of the gaping hole that serves as the entrance, even though the edifice has an actual entrance complete with a real door. You watch as your bubble mate rounds the corner. Somehow, you don’t know how, but somehow the follicular abomination known as his hair looks even worse today. 

“Makara there is nothing that brings me as much joy as seeing your face as you wake up in the morning.”

The hunched over troll squint glares at you. “Die.”

“I’m already dead.”

“Die again.” He glances over at the mound of metallic chaos and then back to you. “Painfully.”

“I’m taking from your expert opinion that getting run through with your own sword doesn’t rate high enough on the excruciating ways to expire scale?”

“NO.”

You sigh dramatically. “Makara I feel like you just aren’t putting as much effort into this relationship as you used to. Your banter is well lacking and I’m starting to get concerned over the possibility that you’re seeing someone else to exchange verbal jabs with.” The troll’s blank stare is interrupted by several unenthused blinks. 

“Strider.”

“Mhm?”

“I’m NOC-TURN-AL. I’m awake at night and SLEEP DURING THE MOTHERFUCKING DAY.” Makara waits a moment for that tidbit of information to sink in. “It’s fucking bright out. So WHAT SHOULD I BE DOING right now?”

“Me?”

“SLEEPING. The answer is sleeping.” 

“Ah, sleeping.”

“Yes. Sleeping.”

“Are you sure you don’t wanna get a little horizontal mambo action in before you go off to count baa beasts? A hot and ready slice of Strider is right here ripe for the taking.” 

“FUCK NO.”

“Is it fuck or no?”

“Let me make this ABUNDANTLY CLEAR human. The answer is NO. The answer will be now and FOREVER NO. When a moment of doubt strikes you, the answer will STILL BE NO. The answer is MOTHERFUCKING NO. I DON’T WANT your cock, dick, man meat, one eyed wonder weasel or any other name you have given your ovipositor. Find ANOTHER HOST for your repulsive offspring parasite.” And with that the troll turns around and stalks off. 

You pick up a gleaming metal bucket and hold it in your hands. There is a name for the motivation behind your next action. Hubris. You do something incredibly stupid with not but a scant moment of thought into it. You chuck a metal bucket at the back of a twelve foot tall mass of murderous intent that for some reason has chosen not to previously torture and kill your ass, but who is soon going to have a great reason to change his mind. And for what? All because at the age of 16 you made a promise to yourself that no one would ever tell you no again. The target of your misguided rage isn’t one of the many in a string of less than stellar foster parents, social workers, or cogs in the great overarching machine known as the juvenile justice system. That bastard is one of the exceedingly rare sentient beings that willingly tolerate you. 

“Fuck.”

WHACK.

Makara lumbering gait halts. You swear the troll turns around at the speed continents form. He stoops down and picks up the now bent bucket. “There comes a time when EVEN I MUST admit that there are situations that are not under MY MOTHERFUCKING CONTROL. But this is not one of these.” His white eyes lock onto yours. “The answer is NO.” He throws the pail back. It hits the rust sand and rolls to a stop at your feet. “Now will you motherfucking OBEY HUMAN?” 

“No one. No fucking one tells me no. Not again. Not anymore. Not even you Grand Highblood.” 

“Those are the words NOT EVEN A WRIGGLER would delude themselves with, it’s just not how the universe works” the creature scoffs.

They told you no. They told you that they couldn’t save him. You chuckle dryly. “Of course you wouldn’t understand. A monster like you, you’ve never lost anyone.”

“I wouldn’t motherfucking understand? I’VE WATCHED EVERYONE I EVER CARED FOR CULLED IN FRONT OF ME.” 

“Shit we’re about to talk about our feelings aren’t we?” You and the troll exchange worried glances. 

“Motherfuck no” Makara rushes.

“That’s a no I can fucking live with.” You pick up the mangled bucket and drop kick it. “That was close” you mumble and turn to walk away.

“Strider?” The troll grabs you by the shoulders and turns you back around.

“Oh shit.”


	11. Revenge is a Bucket Best Served Glowing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bro's a dick, GH is a bag of dicks, and Sollux sees the bright side of being half-dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I rewrote this entire chapter and edited a few other chapters to fix some tidbits that were not canonically accurate, for example now Sollux seems more like half-dead Sollux. The character's personalities were off in the last version. Now instead of being a bunch of pusses they are now a bag of dicks, which seems to be a much more accurate representation.

Today you learned something about yourself. And no, it doesn’t involved how you avoid any discussion that might even remotely relate to feelings or emotions like a plague infested rat or worse a one night stand that you find cooking you breakfast the next morning in your own kitchen. That part of the mangled disaster commonly referred to as your personality you were already well aware of. What you discovered is that you have excellent aim with long range projectile weapons. And by projectile you mean launched with the aid of your foot. And by weapon you mean the battered bucket. And by long range you mean however far that blue and red pulsing light was before it plummeted to the ground. And by aim you mean total I’m not shitting you coincidence that’s just where fate decided to take its shiny metal inanimate ass. Hello tangent that wasn’t a tangent but then became a tangent based on the length of that mental rant. You really do need to learn how to rein those wily fuckers in. Are you going to? No. Your mind is like the great Wild West back in the day where your tangents run free in the wide open prairies. Reining in your tangents is tantamount to fencing your imagination in barbed wire. Your tangents are the mighty buffalo born to roam unhindered. 

“Looks like a ship just SHIT OUT A BATTERY.” Makara’s nonsensical outburst just counteracted your own inner torrent of brain matter vomit. The troll uses SPIKE CURIOSITY. It is super effective. You wait for an explanation. And wait. And wait some more. Okay this is just getting ridiculous. A fucker can’t just say something like that and not follow up with some exposition. Time to get like a detective and figure some shit out.

“A ship just let a load loose in our bubble?” The troll seems confused at the nature of your query. “It took a dump, dropped the kids off at the pool, made a deposit at the bank?” Getting more obtuse is not helping. “Makara, Aradia said that the universe ended.” Your compatriot nods. “So if the universe kissed its ass goodbye then there shouldn’t be any fuckers left alive and therefore, no ships in which used energy storage devices can be excreted into our fine spit of hellscape.”

“What shit on your MOTHERFUCKING MUDBALL sparks red and blue?” The smug prick waits for a response. You don’t exactly have a legitimate response. The troll notes you drawing a blank and continues. “Guess what spark red and blue on ALTERNIA?” You are not going to walk into that trap question. “A MUTANT PISSBLOOD, which are used as BATTERIES on ALTERNIAN SHIPS.” Huh? “Alternian space craft are powered by BANKS OF MUTANT PISS BLOOD trolls. Mutations are MOTHERFUCKING COMMON in that blood caste and result in trolls with telekinetic abilities. MUTANT GEMINIS are used as engines to provide power for propulsion, energy for beam weaponry, and also to provide the power necessary for the daily operations of the ship. Utilizing psychic trolls to power our warships is just one of the multiple factors that lead to the EMPIRE CONQUERING THE KNOWN GALAXY. Don’t know how we missed your MOTHERFUCKING PATHETIC SHITSTAIN of a planet.”

“Fuck you Attila.”

“MEAT SACK I don’t hate you that way.”

“My bad, I forgot that you can only get your bulge up for corpses and little girls.” The troll’s glower switches to befuddlement. “What’s got your man panties in a bunch? It’s not as if your perversions are a national fucking secret. Woodward’s done his digging and has plastered your love of necrophilia all over the front pages of the Post.” Makara’s befuddlement has migrated straight to vexation. The Wategate Reference is a bit convoluted even for a sentient being of the non-horned variety. The troll takes two steps to his right.

“Motherfucker about to get hit with a bucket SAYS WHAT.” What? You whip around just in time to flash step out of the path of an electrified extraordinarily mangled bucket. The hunk of metal abruptly stops and hovers a few feet off of the ground. You swear the object fucking turns to face you. The bucket is a Bro seeking missile. 

“You wanna play fucker? Let’s play.” The bucket accelerates. At ten meters apart you unsheathe your katana and close the distance. With one slash the deed is done. Or so you think. You turn around to view your spoils of victory only to watch the two halves of the bucket reunite. You lash out again. Two, six, ten, twenty slashes later and the bucket still manages to reform. Foolish mortal this terminator’s rampage will not be stopped by the actions of a mere man. You take note of the blue and red pulsing light that engulfs the bucket. And then it hits you.

Literally.

You awaken to a throbbing headache and the unmistakable diesel engine powered locust swarm laugh of the bag of alien dicks that you have been sentenced to spend the rest of eternity with. Karma is your pimp and you are nothing but a ho, a very expensive ho, or maybe a call girl. Yes, you are a classy call girl, who still gets boned in the ass for money. Pfft. Like you get paid for this shit. You’re lucky if you get lube for your karmic ass tappings. Fate is drilling your plush rump like it’s looking for oil. You might be from Texas, but your ass sure ain’t Texas. After you ease yourself up into a sitting position you see a sight to behold, said bag of alien dicks engaging in the sacred ritual of the bro fist with what you assume was the target of your misappropriated rage. You got taken down by a gangly teenage troll with a bowl cut. Oh how far the mighty have fallen. 

“Lo0ks like the grubfucker is awake.” You glance up at the lanky fuck and end up staring. The little shit has one white eye and one empty eye. You hit the little dude so hard in the head an eyeball popped out. Fuck. “What the fuck are you staring at nubslurper? I might be half-dead but I’m not blind. Anym0re” he adds. 

“So the” you gesture to your own eyes “is normal?”

“Normal? Doeth anything about this look normal?” the troll chuckles. “It’s all part of the half-dead packaged deal. I get to float around with AA, commiserate with my dead friends, lose hearing the voices of the doomed, and exchange my duality hoofbeast shit for black and white. And the best part my teeth didn’t grow back so I don’t have my insufferable lisp.” The troll grins. You have a difficult time deciding which of the three troll smiles you’ve seen creep you the fuck out the most. The fairy troll wins out after a few moments of heated mental debate. That trollcita is just too happy. This troll is coming in at a close second. Talk about looking on the bright side, this little dude is going to make you want to hang yourself with the silver lining on his storm clouds. 

“Wriggler if you’re all thinking that half-life is MOTHERFUCKING BITCH TITS then what’s the deal with BANGING FLESH BAG WITH A BUCKET?”

“Revenge. I could have made his husktop explode but watching BS flee from a glowing bucket is fucking hilarious.” 

“BS?” Makara asks puzzled.

“Bro Strider” the younger troll replies. Your bubble compatriot looks so fucking happy it scares you, deeply. The behemoth is reverently gazing upon you like a leper that just found Jesus Christ. 

“Your title is Bro. Motherfucking miracles” the troll whispers. 

“I am not a fucking religious experience. Well sex with me is” you remark off handedly. Makara creeps closer. “Keep your yaoi hands off of me. You go to hug me and I will fucking cut you.”

“Bro” the six foot wall of psychosis and muscle pouts. 

“No touchies” you hiss as you draw your katana. The younger troll face palms. 

“All those that enter this bubble will be doomed, doomed to a fate so heinous that I could not have foretold. This hoofbeast shit.”


	12. Insanity is More Prevalent Than Reason

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The chapter in which so many shits are lost and so few fucks are given.

“Insufferable shitstained knucklesponged nubslurping fucks.” You and Makara take a brief time out from threatening to grievously injure and/or molest each other to get a gander at what the fuck the little dude is losing his shit over. The troll lifts his arms, his palms facing the up, his gaze drifting off into the blue tinted sky. “Did you see that?” 

“See WHAT MOTHERFUCKER? The sky’s empty.”

“My last fuck just flew away.” A hint of a smirk flashes across your face. You don’t know which is funnier, the fact that the little shit has balls big enough to pull that on the two most magnificent bastards this side of the afterlife or the fact that one such bastard is giggling. Yes Makara has succumbed to a lethal case of the giggle fits. The clown is down, repeat the clown is down. Chucklefuck is losing all his fucks chuckling. Your favorite motherfucker is doubled over, eyes shut, shaking on the ground, heaving for breath, and producing a cacophony that can only be described as a warbling swarm of excited cicadas. You want to cut him open just to discover how his vocal chords manufacture sounds that you cannot even begin to fathom how to draw out of a synthesizer. 

“Shit I broke GH” the half-dead troll mumbles horrified. 

“Dude, last visitor we had vaporized chucklefuck.” 

“Oh, that’s why.” You shoot him a questioning look. “I was wondering why AA was freaking out over GH wanting her as a potential kismesis. Displaying your prowess as a caliginous partner by viciously killing a potential kismesis when you are well aware that they won’t stay dead, that’s fucking hot.” 

“So hate fucking is a common troll thing?”

“It’s one of the concupiscent quadrants.”

“Quadrants?” 

The troll sighs. “KK would be so much better at this” he mutters. “But, AA did want me to explain shit.”

“We could head over to my …,” what the fuck did GH call it, “hive.” The little dude perks up a bit. “GH when you’re done giggling like a uke who just got sempai to notice him, drag your painted ass over to the apartment. The little dude,” you lean over the troll “what’s your name?”

“Sollux.”

“Sollux got sent by the fairy to explain shit.”

“WHAT SHIT?”

“Fuck if I know, shit.” Makara shrugs and wanders over. 

At the apartment GH plops down in his designated pile of smuppets and pops open a Faygo. Sollux seems understandably hesitant and sits at the edge of the futon farthest away from the whimsical fuck. You get stuck as the buffer at the other end. The little dude does a double take before settling on you.

“Is he” the troll pauses, his face awash in disturbed confusion at the pile, “your moirail?” Makara snarfs his sorry excuse of carbonation.

“That MEAT SACK MY MOIRAIL?” the troll chuckles. “MOTHER FUCK NO. Subjugglators only fill the CALIGINOUS QUADRANT, having a matesprit or a moirail is seen as a SIGN OF MOTHERFUCKING WEAKNESS.” Sollux’s interest is piqued. You have no idea what is going on.

“What happens if a Subjugglator fills another quadrant?”

“DEATH.”Makara leans in, resting his forearms on the tops of his legs. Shit’s getting serious. “The motherfuckers got TWO CHOICES. Option number one, the subjugglator EXECUTES HIS QUADRANT MATE IN FULL VIEW of his commanding officer and squadron in a method of his choosing. Option number two, if the fucker proves to be unable to perform such a task he FORFEITS HIS RIGHT TO EXIST. He is then FORCED TO WATCH his quadrant mate culled in the manner of the commanding officer’s choosing and then HE IS EXECUTED. Since the executions do not take place on the battlefield and TIME IS NOT A MOTHERFUCKING CONSIDERING FACTOR for choosing the method of culling, it gives the commander a chance to be cReAtIvE.” 

“Shit. Who the fuck came up with that?”Sollux inquires.

“Her Imperial Royal Highness.” The small troll pales. “She likes her pets” he grits “VIOLENT.” 

“What if both are subjugglators?”

Makara smirks. “Then you find out which motherfucker has the STRONGEST WILL TO LIVE.” Sollux’s mouth is agape; the little dude’s eyes are as wide as can be. “Now there is a story passed down through the ranks, A LEGEND AMONG US SUBJUGGLATORS, and an event that I bore witness to many centuries ago. Two subjugglators were DISCOVERED to be matesprits. Both trolls were lowered into a pit with implicit instructions that only one was allowed to leave alive. All present watched as one of the pair of sentenced trolls wiped off his paint, exposing his true self to his matesprit. A follower of the Mirthful Messiahs never removes their paint in the presence of another. It is a motherfucking primary tenet, A NIGH BLASPHEMOUS ACT.” GH grows uncharacteristically solemn. “That troll, stripped bare for all to see, ripped out his own throat with his claws to spare his mate from culling.” He takes a drawn out sip before continuing. “He died an honorable death.” 

You raise a hand. “The ignorant human would like to ask some questions. What the fuck are ya‘ll talking about?” That ill-timed gem earns you two searing death glares. “Stop freaking the fuck out, I don’t have a point of reference for your alien lingo. Terminology just isn’t fucking translating.” Sollux rubs his temples.

“I’ve listen to KK rattle on about this shit enough times so I shouldn’t fuck this shit up that bad” the troll mutters. “All troll romantic relationships fit into one of four quadrants. The quadrants are flushed for your matesprit, pale for your moirail, ashen for your auspistice, and pitch for your kisemsis. Flushed and pale are considered red romance and are linked to positive shit. Ashen and pitch are considered black romance and are linked to negative shit. Now the flushed and pitch quadrants are concupiscent.”

“The ones you fill buckets with.”

Sollux nods. “Pale and ashen quadrants are conciliatory.”

“No bucket filling.” The troll nods again. “So your matesprit is someone that you have positive feelings for that you want to fuck and your kismesis is someone you want to hate fuck.”

“Fuck?” Makara seems confused.

“Pail” you reply.

“FUCKING EQUATES TO PAILING for you motherfuckers?” Makara digs down deep with his pensive self. “So a motherfucker would be one that PAILS MOTHERS. If a troll decided to skip the pail and deposit his genetic material in the mother grub THEN HE WOULD BE A MOTHERFUCKER.”

“Mothers to humans are the ones that give birth to our little shits and raise them.” 

“So a MOTHERFUCKER WOULD PAIL other wriggler’s lusci.” Both trolls seem repulsed by Makara’s discovery.

“What are lusci?”

“Semi-sentient creatures that raise grubs.” Trolls are raised by animals, semi sentient animals, but animals none the less. GH was literally raised in a barn. That sole fact explains quite a few of your bubble compatriot’s eccentricities. Sollux snaps out of his semi sentient bestiality brain bomb and clears his throat, or he just puked and swallowed it to mask his vomitous shame. 

“As enlightening as this shit has been its time for me to try to get some stuff done. I lost a bet to AA and now I get to school feed you two on all of the important shit that you’ve missed being antisocial grubfuckers.” The troll glances between you and Makara. “Do either of you have any questions?” An awkward silence rampages through the room. “Any at all?” More silence. 

“The rustblood told us that the universe had ended, but she failed to inform us on the MACHINATIONS OF ITS DESTRUCTION.”

“The Vast Glub.”

“Motherfucker finally SPACED THAT NOOK” GH utters with a smirk. “If she could not die by my hands than it is more than acceptable for her to MOTHERFUCKING DIE BY HIS.” The younger troll seems confused by the older troll’s hissed ramblings.

“The Vast Glub happened due to FF entering the medium.” Makara straightens up in the pile.

“Feferi Peixes, THE HEIRESS? The one fond of cuttlefish?”

“How do you know that FF likes cuttlefish?” Sollux squawks.

“I am the GRAND HIGHBLOOD. It is my duty to the Alternian Empire to be aware of matters of GREAT MOTHERFUCKING IMPORTANCE. Possible successors to the Condescension’s throne are of marked significance. Especially one who has managed to ELUDE THE EMPRESS’ ASSASSINS while keeping the beast fed. She is the first heiress in eons who has exhibited characteristics MOTHERFUCKING NECESSARY to seize the throne. And if her demise is the reason why our race was exterminated then she is the TRUE RULER OF ALTERNIA and not that fish preoccupied with conquering the known universe. If Gl’bgolyb CHOSE HER, then all that was motherfucking holding her from the throne was ON WELL PLACED THRUST with her trident. ”

“FF, the Empress” the small troll murmurs almost reverently. 

“How are you familiar with THE HEIRESS AND HER DEMISE?” Makara questions his eyes locked on the other troll, the tone of his voice a fucking red disco ball of an alarm. His past statement of having centuries worth of experience getting questions answered flits through your mind. You equip your katana, sheathed and at the ready.

“We’re matesprits.” Sollux waits while the psychotic fuck ruminates.

“MATESPRITS?” The small troll quivers as Makara spits the word out. “Do you expect me to MOTHERFUCKING BELIEVE THAT?”

“Yes because it’s true” he shouts out desperate. “I stayed behind and helped her cross into the medium before Alternia was destroyed by Sgrub.” Sollux quiets. “After she entered the game she brought me back with a kiss. I know that I don’t deserve her pity, but she’s flushed for me and I’m flushed for her. I’ll always be flushed for her,” he whispers, “even if I never find her bubble.”

“Satisfied?” The clown cannot see you glaring behind your shades but you bet your plush rump he can fucking feel it. Makara shies away. Score one for pure killing intent. Once your severe agitation at the bag of dicks contaminating your smuppets wears off the full weight of the half-dead troll’s words hits you. “Holy unrighteous fuck” you mutter. The medium. Sgrub. “You played the game. That’s what fucking ended your universe.” Sollux nods. Shit just got fucking complicated.

“What MOTHERFUCKING GAME?” Sollux turns to the perplexed troll and plops his face into his hands with a sigh. 

“AA didn’t explain that shit?” the troll grumbles. “Explaining that shit would fill up a 5,000 page book. FUCK.” The half-dead troll executes an epic “why me” hiss directed at the popcorn ceiling of your apartment. The little dude could give Shatner a run for his money. “Listen up nubslurpers you’re getting the annotated version and you are going to shut up and fucking deal with it.” Sollux huffs and talks a fuckload. The little dude wasn’t kidding about the 5,000 pages. This shit is dense as Ulysses and makes as much sense as Slaughter House Five. Makara is left in stunned confused silence. You at least have the semblance of half a clue given that you’ve been in Sburb and yet you would snatch up the spark notes version in a steamy hot second.

“Jack Noir isn’t the big bad. The Condescension who survived out of sheer force of evil will from the Alternian session, then skipped the Beta Earth session, went to the Alpha Earth session and turned that into her own fucked up version of let’s make humans into trolls paradise, isn’t the big bad. Then who is the fuck is the final boss? And how do we fuck his shit up?”

“His name is Lord English.”

“We have to defeat a fucker that drinks tea and eats crumpets.” Sollux shakes his head.

“Lord English is the incarnation of evil. He is responsible for stacking the deck, making the game sessions unwinnable, destroying universes, annihilating the horror terrors, and generally fucking shit up.” Fuck. “He can only be stopped via a loophole in the game matrix or a time-induced glitch. One team of ghosts are currently searching for his sister who some believe will be able to defeat him. Another contingency are hunting for a magical artifact, but they don’t know what exactly it is.”

“Is there any way that we can ease this motherfucker’s TRANSITION INTO THE NEXT WORLD?”

“Dude you sound like you want to fucking help him.”

“It’s a MOTHERFUCKING EUPHEMISM for ending the motherfucker.”

“The both of you are fucking retarded. Look, if you insipid fucks want to assist in this shit fest just let AA or I know if you find a little green alien with a skull for a face or a magical object. Unfortunately that’s all any of us can do for now until the two groups reach the new session.” 

“So our options are to alternate twiddling our thumbs and sticking them up our asses?”

“AA owes me so fucking much. This shit is worth more than one lost bet” the troll grumbles. “Lord English is fracturing existence as he hunts for his sister. As the amount useable space decreases the remaining memory bubbles float in closer proximity to each other. What this boils down to is that you two gloriously wonderful fuckers have an increased chance in encountering other bubbles and meeting their inhabitants.” Makara perks up. “AA and I have not met every ghost, but we do know that all of ghosts are former game players or are their alternate iterations. Also there is a possibility that you can meet the current game players. Play nice, the bastards left alive have gone through enough shit without having to deal with yours.” A started clicking buzz grabs your attention. Makara looks as if he went through an epiphany that he isn’t thrilled over.

“I’m NOT THE MOTHERFUCKING ORIGINAL” the clown shrieks. 

“You’re the post scratch iteration of Kurloz Makara, the Prince of Rage.” 

Oh my fucking god.

“There are fucking two of him?” 

“Yes, and there are two of you as well. You’re the pre-scratch iteration of Dirk Strider, the Prince of Heart.” Makara produces another shrill buzz.

“I need to motherfucking SIT DOWN.”

“Attila, you are sitting down.”

“THIS ISN’T MOTHERFUCKING HELPING.”

“And that’s my cue to leave. Goodbye fuckers.” Sollux flips a double bird and pops out of the bubble. You and your bubble mate are left in a dazed stupor. 

 

Outside of the bubble Sollux floats over to his radiant moirail.

"Sollux! How did the school feeding go?"

"I'm still half-dead AA." The winged troll beams at his reply.

"It went better than expected! That's wonderful!" Aradia pauses, lost momentarily in thought. "Sollux?"

"Yes AA?"

"Did you talk about the other ghosts that they could meet in the bubbles?"

"A smidgen."

"Did you mention The Signless?"


	13. Avoidance is the Name of the Play

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bro and GH deal with the memories dug up from Sollux's visit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am apologizing in advance for the trauma that your feels might experience. I promise that the next chapter will be happier. 
> 
> Also, puppets are evil. Just thought you should know that.

Your brain just got some rough trade and you weren’t even taken out to dinner first. Consider you delicate sensibilities to be highly offended. New clients, they just don’t know the proper way to treat a lady, although, just a few hours ago you did admit to being Karma’s call girl. Enough about you and how your exquisite mind just got man handled in a manner not up to your exacting tastes. There are two sentient fucks left in the apartment, your fine ass self being one and chucklefuck being the other. Makara is restrained, brooding. His hands are folded finger entwined; elbows resting on his knees forcing him into a hunched position at the edge of the multi-hued pile, his massive thicket of hair threatening to engulf his horrendous posture along with his face. The clown is sullen. You get the impression that you shouldn’t ask him any questions so you don’t. Now is far from the appropriate time to pry into the ominous recesses of the troll’s think pan. The creature stirs. You watch him force himself out of the pile and trudge out of the apartment. The door shuts and you are left alone. Just you, yourself, and Cal hits you so hard with a dirty look you get whiplash.

“Sorry my main man got a bit preoccupied with all the heavy shit that just went down.” Preoccupied he says. “Didn’t you listen to what the lanky fucker just spilled? He dropped so many drama bombs it feels like Dresden in here.” Cal says that he heard. He asks why you look so nervous. “Me? Nervous?” you smirk and blow it off. Cal calls bullshit, your lower lip twinges. “Existence is one thickness of a pube hair away from being destroyed from a trans-dimension hulk and there isn’t one fucking iota that I can do about it.” Cal glares at you. You failed to mention the whiff of a hint of a possibility that you could see Dave. You failed to mention how scared shitless you are of that whiff of a hint. Cal can smell it, your fear. Nothing gets past him. Nothing. “I’m not afraid.”

_Pussy don’t lie to me. Run away all you want. The incarnation of your failure is waiting here, with us._

“I’m alone here.” 

Cal dryly laughs. _If you’re so alone why do you sleep on the futon? Why don’t you just sleep on the bed in Dave’s room? Go ahead Bro. Open the door._

Striders run towards the enemy not away from it. You pull yourself off of the futon and walk the few steps down the hallway to your little bro’s room. Two years have passed since you last opened this door. This is your fucking apartment, your domain. Here you are quote motherfucking omnipotent end quote. You yank the door open. The knob thumps against the wall hard enough to gouge a hole through the drywall. Dave is sitting at his computer with his headphones on, his head bobbing to the imperceptible music. You know that this is just a memory. He is nothing more than a figment of your fevered imagination, a by- product of your death. You’re not grieved because you died. You’re falling apart because you left him to face the trials ahead of him alone. “I’m sorry.” The memory of Dave takes off his headphones. You try not to flinch. And like always, you fail.

“Say something Bro?” You know this isn’t real.

“Do you want Chinese or pizza for dinner lil man?” But you play along anyways.

“Chinese. Cashew chicken and I want some fried dumplings.”

“Sure thing.” Dave puts his headphones back on. You slam the door shut with enough force to rattle the hinges. The breathing exercises you attempt to regain focus do jack shit. Mediating slumped against the cracked door reveals only that which you do not want to see. The abyss is looking back with a vengeance. You pick yourself up and start off towards the door.

_What are you getting tired of dealing with yourself?_

“Fuck you Cal.”

_Run. It’s what your good at. Bury your shit in layers of irony so deep that you almost forget that it reeks._

He calls you a coward; you don’t correct him because it’s true. You leave the apartment and him behind. Two doors lie between yourself and everything that you wish to avoid. Two doors is not enough. You decide to taunt fate and worm out the location of the clown. His demeanor when he left your humble abode was far from ideal for starting a conversation. However, getting Attila angry enough to gut you doesn’t seem like that bad of an option considering. Now is the perfect time to make bad decisions. Miles of desert span out before you. You pick a direction on a whim and start walking. A few seconds, minutes, hours, days later the clean crisp air becomes tinged with salt. You can count the occasions you went to the beach on a single mitten. This isn’t your memory, that fact gives you purpose, it drives your feet faster in the direction of the cooling breeze. 

The ocean is beautiful at night. Two moons are nestled in among the pin pricks of light that stretch out across the palette of vivid pinks and purples merging into subdued blues. The sand is coarse; the texture is more of broken shards of pebbles than the fine grains from home. But the feel of the water lapping against your ankles is well worth the grit that stubbornly adheres to the soles of your feet. Several yards off into the distance a slight figure is slumped in on itself. Curiosity commiserates with your best intentions and you stroll down the shore line. The wriggler is shivering; his knees are drawn in underneath his chin, the arms wrapped around holding them in place for warm. Wide grey eyes brimming with purple tears stare out into the horizon following a white creature swimming out into the vast expanse. 

The flood gates opens as the pale blur fades away into nothingness. The purple tears run rivulets through the wriggler’s black and white paint. The pattern is not familiar but the spiraling horns are. The wriggler’s chest is heaving, each breathe fast and deep. It doesn’t take long for the little one to collapse into a sobbing tangle of limbs, tears, snot and running paint. Your attempts to comfort him are futile. You can’t even touch him. All that you can do is watch as he tears himself apart. Blood stains his claws as he digs them into his skin and scalp yowling at the pain as pieces of hair get ripped out. The frenzy ends as abruptly as it begins. The wriggler flails until he is up on his hands and knees. The physical damage seems superficial. The emotional damage you cannot tell. A growl pushes its way out from behind clenched fangs. The wriggler stands, his eyes are set on the horizon. He throws his head back and howls as the water swallows up the setting sun. The child’s anguish rips through you to your core. The sound is brimming with pain, anger, and sorrow. The look set on the troll’s face is one all too familiar with you from your years spent entrenched in the system. Only thing holding him together is sheer force of will. The troll stalks off down the beach. He leads you to a hive reminiscent of the castle. The dwelling is constructed of a small collection of spiraling towers of various heights. A sudden jolt stops you from entering the hive. You look down and find GH’s outstretched arm blocking your path. The troll slowly shakes his head.

“yOu dO noT waNt tO fOlLoW oN tHe pAtH hE lEaDs.” You start to ask his why. He cuts you off. “TrUsT mE bRo.”

“Where does that path lead to?” Makara laughs without mirth and takes a swig of a questionable green substance.

“ME.” Footfalls accompanied by a thunk down stairs grabs you attention, you flash step to the other side of the elder Makara to allow his younger self to exit the hive. The gangly troll is armed with a juggling club. He scans the shoreline his grip tightens around the handle, the wood groans but it does not splitter. 

“Where is he going?” GH points to a lit structure on a ridge line.

“A bLuEbLoOd lIvEs tHeRe, bUt nOt foR lOnG.” And you understand. You don’t want to but you do. The only reason why this fucker can watch this unfold is because he is stoned to hell and back.

“You can stop this.”

“bRo tHis” he flings his arms open wide “haS aLreAdy cOmE tO paSs.” He pats the sand beside him. You plop down by your compatriot in misery with the aplomb that that the occasion deserves. Makara sips at his liquid crutch as his other self nears his target. A moment later the lights in the hive go out. “THis iS tHe thIrD wOrSt meMoRy kIcKiNg aRoUnd iN mY pAn, tHe fInAl tiMe tHat I sAw mY lUsCus. A lItTle oF lIfE’s mIrAcLes dIeD fOr mE tHat dAy. I sPeNt tHe sWeEpS uNtiL mY cOnsCripTioN iNto thE fleEt cUlliNg. WhEn tHe sHip cAmE tO pIck uS mOthErfUckErs uP iNstEad Of fInDinG hUndReds Of trOlLs liNeD uP bY tHe spEctRum, thEy fOund tWo.” He chuckles. “THe oThEr mOtHerfUckEr hAd aLmOst cUlLed aS maNy aS mE. hE bEcaMe ThE E%ecUtiOnEr aNd I, tHe GrAnD hIgHblOod.” GH gazes out into the night sky. “tElL mE HoRusS. DiD yOu fInd yOur grEen giRl? ArE yOu oUt aMonG tHe sTaRs wItH hEr?” he murmurs.

“You could think of another memory.”

“tHerE aRe wOrsE oNeS tHaN tHis.” You raise an eyebrow. “BeForUs. Or shOuLd I sAy tHe rEasOn wHy tHe nAmE bEfOrus iS fAmiliaR. A fOrmEr prIsOner oF mInE tOld mE tHe tAle. hE sAiD tHat BeForUs wAs rEaL, tHat iT liVed iN hIs mEmOries.” A dark feeling twists inside your gut.

“This story doesn’t end well.” 

“it dOes nOt eNd weLl fOr aNyOne.” Makara shakes his head as he peers into his empty cup. “Oh maGicAl cUp wHy mUst yOu bE bErEft oF sOpor?” He taps the side of the container before a broad grin spreads across his face. “mIrAcLes.” He takes a drawn out swig before holding the cup out to you. You take a bottle of cheap tequila out of your sylladex and pour the contents into the vessel. After your spiking of epic questionable proportions is complete you grab the cup and take a gulp before your better judgment kicks in. You taste the palette of colors in the sky. 

“The snozzberries taste like snozzberries” you whisper and promptly black out.


	14. Bro is High as Fuck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bro is high as fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a wee dabble into his sopor addled mind.

The time is 11:59. One minute away from high noon. One minute away from sealing the fate of this small western town. Or so you think so, roman numerals are difficult as fuck to read that far away. This cluster of building is no more than a minuscule dot on a map but that don’t mean that it ain’t worth fightin for. A dubstep remix of a song reminiscent of a spaghetti western plays muffled in the distance as you face off against your mortal enemy, a malicious roll of duct tape. Sand whips across the deserted main street. The grit stings your eyes, but the only tears shed today will be the tears of the duct tape’s women as they gnash their teeth and wail at his demise. The humble townsfolk watch as the scene unfolds with bated breath from the shop’s and saloon’s windows. Will their hero triumph? Or will the villain succeed with his villainous ways? The church bell begins to toll.

“This town ain’t big enough for the both of us,” you hiss. The duct tape remains unflappable. It has earned the mark of your nemesis. 

“Draw,” the scurrilous bastard spits. The church bell tolls for the twelfth time. A shot rings out in the desert and a red flower blooms on your shirt, its petals liquid. You drop to your knees. This is what you get for bringing a sword to a gun fight. As you topple to the blood stained dirt you notice the duct tape’s hat. 

“It’s white,” you mutter with your dying breath. A black hat rolls off of your head. You were the villain all along. Dying snaps you back to the closest semblance of reality that your fevered mind can grab hold of. You squirm like an angst ridden caterpillar trapped in a silver cocoon yearning to be free, to be the beautiful butterfly of your dreams. The fervor of your struggles wrenches your binds off of the ceiling and for a brief moment you become the butterfly. “I shot the sheriff but I didn’t shoot the deputy,” you shriek as you plummet face first into the futon. Your flailing metallic worm body lands in the center, the sides fold up. You are no majestic butterfly. No sir, you are the imitation meat filling of a hard shelled taco. Imitation meat filling cannot help those good towns people. You have failed not only them, but all tacos everywhere. 

The clown watches the entire spectacle unravel nonplussed. “Motherfucker’s still fucked in the think pan.”


	15. I See You Shiver With

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bro's finally sober and GH finally takes a shower.

Seems like Makara found out where you stashed the duct tape. You awoke moments ago to discover that you are nothing more than a shiny metallic speed bump on the road of life, if said metaphorical obstacles in a person’s life were constructed out of a duct tape coated dead guy wedged into a folded up futon. Its official Striders and duct tape do not mix, which brings to mind another delightful item that does not fare well under the constrictive properties of the robust reinforcing strips, Smuppets. Smuppets and duct tape a friendly pair do not make. No one likes anal irritation. Your first hand experience with the matter left you with a month long prescription for a cream and a surplus of duct taped shoved up in your crawl space. The literal crawl space of your apartment’s attic, not some mildly clever euphemism for your well traveled passages. Well traveled my ass your prostate scoffs. When was the last time that you got laid? The blue smuppet winking at you over in the corner does not count. Rodolpho does too count. No, no he doesn’t. His proboscis just doesn’t quench those lustful desires. Sorry Rodolpho but my prostate doesn’t find you stimulating. The most recent occasion that your plush rump got some proper action should be the least of your concerns. Your most pressing concern should be the vicious yet puerile method in which you will exact your revenge, once you’ve escaped the tape lined futon iron maiden of course.

Speaking of anal irritations the bubble mate that has doomed you to suffer this most sticky of fates has padded over to your present location. All you can see of the fucker is his grey feet. You seethe with excitement and thrash with impotent rage. Your wiggling gets you nowhere for your rage is just that, impotent. A clawed hand clamps down on the layers of tape and cloth between your shoulder blades and gives you a firm tug. With one smooth motion you’re extricated from the confines of the futon. Makara props you up against the closed furniture piece. A myriad of questions flood your mind as you get a good look at the troll. The first and foremost, did he take a shower? Makara’s torrential cascades of black locks are damp, relatively tamed, and free from the customary mysterious bits found within the follicle confines. His paint looks freshly applied, the white edges crisp against the black. The troll is shirtless. Why haven’t you enforced a no shirt policy in the apartment sooner? And is there a vet on the premises because those pythons are sick. Your appreciation of alien anatomy has grown by leaps and bounds. The musculature of the troll is strikingly similar to humans, developed pectorals, a set of six well defined abdominals framed by obliques. You follow the v cut by his lower abs down to a pair of leather pants. Who’s his tailor? Cause damn you like the cut of his jib. 

“Motherfucker’s drooling. Might have clubbed the fucker too hard on the pan,” Makara whispers as he gingerly prods at your noggin. He produces a buzzing click that reels you back to the present and away from the dubious thoughts frolicking in the hills and dales of your consciousness. 

“You’re fine… no I’m fine.” The troll’s concern diminishes with your reply. He shrugs, grips a clawed mitt on one of your shoulders, and shreds a path down the middle of the duct taped cocoon with a practiced ease. His hand drops the few inches from your shoulder to a corner of the tattered tape sheet and with a flick of his wrist you spin out of your former binds and into a graceful dip. 

“I am unaccustomed to such gentlemanly behavior,” you declare in your best southern belle impersonation. “Hold me close for I feel as if I am to on the verge of being overcome by the vapors.” You put your heart and soul into the swoon, Makara straightens his arm and watches you drop to the floor. 

“Aliens,” the troll mutters as he strolls into the kitchen. Standing up should not be the gargantuan of an ordeal that it turns into, but you’ve felt better fresh out of a bar fight. Each and every muscle in your body burns with a dull ache, your pale skin is a canvas of mottled blues, purples, and yellows. No bones seem broken, just a few bruised ribs. Your entire body is one continuous impact injury. Either the carpet of the apartment needs to get its name changed from vaguely not ironic hideous stain catcher to vaguely not ironic hideous Bro fucker upper or you and the clown got into some crazy shit last night that you have no recollection of. A piece of duct tape taps you on the forehead. You yank it off of the ceiling. What went down last night wasn’t just any crazy shit, it was epic crazy shit. 

An unknown smell wafts into the living room. The smell is appealing, familiar and yet not, like a reawaken memory that you once thought was long since forgotten, lost to the ravages of time or repeated head injuries. You hobble over to the source of the scent and find yourself at the counter staring at a Technicolor marvel. Two yellow inch thick slabs are frying in a pan on the stove top. On the next burner is a pot set to a low simmer, small purple spheres bobbing in the boiling water. You turn your attention to your bubble mate to find him methodically chopping what you assume to be some sort of vegetable into bite sized pieces. Once all of the veggies have been properly subjugglated Makara scoops the bits up and tosses them into a smaller second pan. He coats the assortment in a liquid and adds a dash or two of a variety of spices. Food preparation is happening right now in your kitchen. Attila is fucking cooking and it smells utterly delectable. Ten minutes pass in stunned silence as you watch the destroyer of worlds, enslaver of races, and over all intergalactic harbinger of doom deftly flip the steaks with a pair of tongs to ensure an even sear, taste test sauce, and saute mixed vegetables. Makara sets down a plate in front of you, takes a seat at the end of the counter and begins happily munching away.

“Makara what the fuck happened last night?” 

The troll puts down the 2 liter of cola Faygo. “You don’t MOTHERFUCKING REMEMBER meat sack?” You shake your head. The fucker bursts out laughing; you swear a few honks slip out. “Bro, one sip and you were motherfucking gone into the REALMS OF THE MIRTHFUL MESSIAHS. You leapt up in this haze screaming that I was some MOTHERFUCKING DEMON DOG and tried to hack at me with your sword. We laid to waste my hive and the castle in the ENSUING STRIFE. Your hive would have been MOTHERFUCKING NEXT but I was able to bundle you up before the demolition. You still wouldn’t SETTLE YOUR MOTHERFUCKING NUBS so I attached you to the ceiling. That sliver shit is motherfucking glorious, the ONE REDEEMING FEATURE of your pathetic fragile species, that and those COLORFUL MIRACLE BITES.” Your bubble mate takes a slurp of the carbonated sugar water. “By the way I STILL HAVE your sword in my sylladex.” Huh? Huh? WHAT?

“You… fucking disarmed me?” This just doesn’t happen. You don’t lose. And most of all you don’t lose your katana. You hold your katana closer to your heart than your own meat sword. The troll looks at you like you’re a fucking idiot.

“You’re sword is in MY MOTHERFUCKING SYLLADEX. My sylladex contains YOUR MOTHERFUCKING SWORD. How else do you want me to STATE IT motherfucker? The sharp shiny thing YOU TRIED TO CULL ME WITH is in my possession.”

“Dude I fucking get it. This shit just hasn’t happened before.” The scraping of cutlery against ceramic fills the silence. “So, you can cook?”

“The food at the fleet commissary tastes like the motherfucking shit I would SCRAPE OFF MY FEET.” You give an understanding nod which unleashes the floodgates of Makara’s baking escapades. Apparently the fucker can bake a Faygo pie so bitch tits that that the high priests offer it as a tribute to the mirthful messiahs during carnival. You have not a single iota of a clue what the clown is talking about but the fucker is just too animated to rain on his religious baking fanatic parade so you nod and mumble comments at mostly appropriate times. For the first time in what feels like decades the sink gets used for its intended purpose and the confection conversation continues to the living room. 

“What is it?” 

“It’s a starburst.” The troll briefly examines the orange square before popping it in his mouth. He doesn’t look impressed. “You have to take the paper off first.” Makara watches you strip your piece bare before you munch away. A second or two passes before you hear the hum of content cicadas. You have to wonder if the fucker isn’t part insect based on the sounds he makes and love of fruit flavored candies. Makara leaves after trying out all of the flavors that you can remember. All that remains from the visit is a sink full of dirty dishes for you to scrub and a pile of damp starburst wrappers on the coffee table. His spit is even purple you muse as you inspect the soaked wax paper. The wrappers are coated in saliva and yet free of the tiniest knick, scratch or rip. He didn’t use his teeth. He unwrapped it with just his tongue. A grin weasels its way out as the full implications of what you’ve just discovered prance about your perverted mind. Cal gives you the look. 

“I don't want no dissension. Just dynamic tension.”


	16. ANTICI...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alternate title: Or How to be Fucked Figuratively by Not Being Fucked Literally

“MEAT SACK you forgot to retrieve your…,” Makara halts midway through the door frame the katana in his hand clatters to the stone floor, “sword.” The troll looks as if he has never seen a human sprawled out on his bed wearing nothing but a pair of kamina shades and fingerless gloves before. You almost feel sorry for the brutal treatment the door handle is sustaining as he surveys your delectable form. The metal groans as Makara trails over your exposed collarbones, down your torso sculpted by years of training and laced with scars earned from countless bouts of strife. The lump is utterly mangled by the time he reaches the golden trail of hair that leads to your spread legs. What’s left of the abused door handle snaps off when he gets the full view of the main attraction. Your cock is standing at full attention a bead of precome glistening at the apex. Two fingers slick with an abundance of purple lube languidly stretch your hole in preparation. The stage is set all you need is the last finishing touch. You slip your fingers out and squirt a generous helping of lube. Once satisfied with the amount deposited on your fingers you write a short to the point message on your chest. Even if the troll can’t read English he’ll be able to decipher the two word phrase given the sheer preponderance of context clues. The crushed hunk of metal drops to the floor as you meticulously lick off the excess from your fingers. Makara visibly twitches as he watches enraptured with each stroke of your tongue. Grape flavor was an excellent decision on your part. 

“Makara, Grand Highblood, consider this my salacious invitation.” You pause to let your intentions sink in if the ‘pail me’ you wrote on your chest wasn’t clear enough. “So are you going to throw me up against a wall and fuck me until you’re satisfied?” The troll’s breathing is slow and deep, both of his hands clench and unclench in synch. His eyes have not left you once since he walked into his chamber. You smirk. He wants to plow your plush rump until it is the finest tilled field in existence. Go ahead, let’s make some farmers jealous. Makara whines as you trace lazy circles around your entrance. He does the unexpected. The troll breaks eye contact, whips around towards the door and sinks his claws into the top of the substantial slab. You watch as shards of wood splinter under the increasing pressure. A low rumbling growl sounds the door’s death knell. The muscles in his back and arms tense as the door is ripped off of its hinges. The cracked and splintered remains land on the cold stone floor. Makara pays you no heed and leaves without saying a single word. 

“That fucker. No he isn’t a fucker, because if he was a fucker then there would be fucking going on. Which there isn’t. And it not for a fucking lack on my part,” you ramble on as you wipe the lube off of your chest with his sheets and hastily throw the clothes on that you stashed near the platform. You swipe your katana off of the floor as you stroll out of the room. “Hell hath no fury like the booty that ain’t gettin’ any.” Time to make him pay. 

Getting lost in a labyrinth of ever changing identical corridors with piss poor lighting does wonders for a person’s frustration. Realizing that the reason why you are lost in a maze of musical hallways is due to the fucker’s memory changing while you are still in it is even better. The fucker is fucking your fuck up without even having to fucking try. How fucking wonderful. A greater time has passed than you would have ever wanted to spend looking for a fucking way out of the troll’s medieval abode. Fuck finding a door. Doors are for sheep, masses trained by society to believe that only designated openings of a building should be used as an exit. You’re going to make your own exit even if you have to hack through each and every god forsaken wall in this joint. Hell, you would dig through the Alps with a spork if you got to slaughter the clown’s ass on the other side. 

“It’s just you and me,” you whisper as your leather gloved hands snake around the braided silken cord wrapped handle. “Let’s make this bitch crumble.” The wall next to you explodes inwards and a grey blur slams against the opposing wall with a meaty thwack. That works too. You shrug and nonchalantly checkout the paste on the wall. There isn’t enough of the creature left for you to identify it. All that remains is a shattered dull grey shell oozing a thick vicious black substance. After a quick prod at the carcass you pick your way over the splattered monochromatic conglomeration and through the debris to the newly created gaping hole. A hulking grey bipedal crustacean blocks the exit to sweet freedom and a well deserved pint of beer and ice cream. The creature is faceless yet humanoid. It has a grey shell similar to the freshly minted corpse with long spines on the head, back, and shoulders. It carries a bucket in each hand. On the right wrist is a heart in red, on the left is a black spade. You doubt that the symbols have anything to do with poker, but it’s worth a shot. The crustacean thrusts the heart bucket out to you. “I’ve never played hearts before.” You blankly stare at the creature as it waits. It drops the heart bucket and holds out the spade bucket. “How about a game of Black Jack? War? Japanese baseball?”You’ve got nothing. The bucket fiend crackles and jiggles the bucket in front of you. “What the fuck is with aliens and their obsession with pails?” you mutter under your breath. 

The rattling stops. The creature seems transfixed by what’s between your legs. Consider your curiosity sparked. You take a gander at the floor and discover a growing pool of black blood. The bucket falls into the puddle, the din muffled by the thick liquid. You turn your attention back to the creature. Its face splits in two revealing packed rows of stained needle teeth. You just pissed off a meat grinder the size of the hulk. Good fucking job Strider. The abomination shrieks as it lunges. A razor tip claw swipes at your shirt ripping the material as you sprint forward. You drop to your knees and slide on the blood slicked floor, your back arched and both hands on the hilt. You whip your body forward slicing the creature up through the middle as you glide between the legs. The abomination crashes down to the rust desert with a blood curdling scream as its entrails spill out. You decapitate the creature and complete the kill. The only suffering bastard allowed here is you. And suffer you will.

“Fuck.” If there was ever an appropriate time to use that word it is now. As in right now. The desert is swarming with an army of the meat grinders which are climbing the growing mountain of bodies to reach Makara who is swinging his club with gleeful abandon. The blood drenched club pauses in mid swing. Sempai noticed you. This does not bode well. The troll grabs the nearest crustacean and rips off the creatures head. The fucker grins and throws the severed body part at you. It lands against the castle with a sickening crunch. 

“This is YOUR MOTHERFUCKING FAULT Strider. Every inkling that I had of PAILING YOU SHRIVELED UP when I heard of your species REPUGNANT REPRODUCTION HABITS. But then, then you had to go and MOTHERFUCKING DO THAT YOU MOTHERFUCKING TEASE.” The flying head grabs the attention of the meat grinders. A contingency of the abominations break off from the swarm and bum rush you like a pack of groupies. “Drones cull BY RIPPING OFF A TROLL’S LIMBS. ENJOY YOUR DEATH STRIDER. YOU’VE EARNED IT.” And now you’re fucked. Striders run towards the enemy, not away. You meet the swarm with your sword drawn.

You don’t know how much time has passed since the blood started flowing and frankly you couldn’t give a fuck. You’re sprawled out on a mountain of corpses. Your hat is missing, your shades are cracked, the remaining tatters of your shirt were lost to the death throes of the last creature you shish kabobed, and your jeans look like you bought them at a trendy emo store. You’re coated in a thick viscous black fluid that you hope is just blood but you’re starting to have your doubts. Something is amiss, and that something is in your jeans. Annihilating a rampaging horde that exists for the sole purpose of rending you limb from limb really gets your blood flowing but this is just absurd. There’s a party raging in your pants and you are one bad decision away from inviting the carcass lump that you caught yourself unconsciously grinding against to join in on the fun. Makara flops down onto the pile finished with his hunt for the wounded. The troll’s presence brings you a more than welcome distraction from dwelling on your possible forays into necrophilia. 

“Makara.” He rolls his head to face you at a glaciers pace. He is brimming with excitement. His cup of joy over flows at the mere thought of your continuing existence. You are staring at the face of someone that wants to flay you alive. 

“What blight are YOU GOING TO PLAGUE ME with now human?” He is one step away from turning you into a trophy to hang on his wall. 

“Never mind.” The troll sounds like he just ground out a gear shifting with a manual transmission. The pile quakes and Makara has you pinned faster than your brain can decide that flash stepping out of the path of a snarling psychotic clown that just finished smashing skulls in a blood soaked rampage would be an excellent decision. His teeth are as less than an inch away from shredding your skin, looks like you might have pissed him off.

“Ask your MOTHERFUCKING QUESTION.” 

“I was just going to ask what the fuck is going on. I know or at least have a fucking idea what the fuck is occurring right this fucking moment, but I just wanted to know what the fuck was going on say right before our disturbing cuddle session on the carcass pile started.” 

“Human this ISN’T A FEELINGS JAM and I am not your MOTHERFUCKING MOIRAIL.” He chuckles and for a brief moment being ripped into chunks by a swarm of aliens doesn’t seem like that bad of an alternative. “This is a memory from my ninth sweep when the DRONES CAME TO COLLECT and I didn’t have a filled pail to offer up. I FOUGHT OFF THE SWARM until I was compelled by the blood.” Makara takes both of your wrists in one hand and drags his freed claws over your chest leaving patterns in the drying black sludge. “Drones’ blood is laced with an aphrodisiac to encourage trolls who are CAPABLE OF DISMEMBERING ONE to find a partner and FILL A PAIL so that their superior genes will be passed along to subsequent generations.” 

“So why this memory? Why now?” 

“You FIGURE IT OUT motherfucker.” Your train of thought gets derailed when the troll’s tongue touches your skin. It’s broad, slick, and without end. Everything stops as you watch the troll lap up the blood he was toying with just moments earlier. His eyes flash up to you as his tongue drags over his bottom lip licking up an errant drop.

“Oh.” He climbs up the pile beside you, his fangs stop just shy of slicing the shell of your ear, his breath deceptively hot compared to the skin in contact with your own. 

“I want to make you pant. I want to make you scream my name as you writhe underneath me. I want to sink my bulge deep into you and fill you with my seed until you reek of me. Until every troll that you encounter knows that I’ve had you. That I’ve made you mine.” 

“Then why don’t you? I gave you the most blatant fucking invitation I can short of throwing you down and stripping your clothes off.” 

“It’s not that motherfucking simple,” he growls.

“Why the fuck not? We’re both sentient, consenting beings who’ve reached the age of sexual maturity for our corresponding species. I don’t fucking see the problem.”

“Your species is PARASITIC. Your young grow inside.” This is why? This is the reason that the troll has for the sexual tension fueled nightmare of a memory that almost got you dismembered. Bullshit.

“You think that if you have sex with me that I’ll somehow infect you and my offspring will burst out of your fucking chest.” You chortle. “You thought that I was trying to seduce you so that you would be the host for my alien baby?”

“It erupts out of the chest cavity?” the troll whispers horrified. His face is twisted in a look of shock, horror, and repulsion. Oh wow he is serious. Makara thinks you’re an alien, literally. Not wanting to have an alien parasite claw out of your body is a completely legitimate reason not to fuck someone. 

“I need to put more effort into explaining shit to you. Alright look, I can’t,” air quote, “infect you because a, human reproduction doesn’t work that way and b, you aren’t a human female. You just don’t have the necessary parts.” The troll is still concerned but at least he doesn’t look like he’s going to throw up. “I’m explaining the birds and the bees to an alien so I can get laid. This is fucking bizarre”, you mutter. “This is what actually happens. There are males and females. Females have specialized cells called eggs that they make in their ovaries, once a month an egg travels from an ovary to the uterus. Now a male can fertilize the egg while it is in the uterus by inserting his penis into the woman’s vagina and releasing his semen which contain sperm. An egg will start to develop into an embryo once it has fused with a sperm cell.” 

“Two males of your species cannot reproduce?”

“They can’t produce offspring however they can still have sex. There’s this organ called a prostate which is located near the rectum and can be pleasurable  
when stimulated.” The way the troll is staring at you is just disturbing. “Stop looking at me like a creeper and just ask the fucking question.” 

“They use the waste chute?” Makara sounds strangely hopeful when asking.

“The number of ways two men can have sex is only limited by their imagination. But yes one of the more common ways is to use the waste chute.” The troll is practically thrumming with quiet excitement.

“So it’s common for one male to WILLINGLY ALLOW another male to insert himself into his waste chute?” 

“If they are both attracted other males and consent to engage in sexual congress then yes.” The troll chuckles like a dirty old swarm of cicadas. “What?”

“Using the waste chute is considered KINKY.” 

“How kinky?”

“It’s the most MOTHERFUCKING DEPRAVED act one troll can do to another.” 

“Really?” Emphasis on the e. Makara grins like a Cheshire cat.

“Wanna engage in a depraved act MEAT SACK?” 

“I’d thought you’d never fucking ask.” You rummage through the pile and yank out a bucket. “Should I bring a pail? Or do you already have one?”

“Strider, YOU ARE THE PAIL.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's about time to earn this explicit rating.


	17. PATION

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alternate Title: And They Fricked
> 
> This chapter is NSFW. Time to earn this explicit rating.

Being told that someone wants to use you as a come bucket isn’t a turn on for most people. You aren’t most people. However, there is just one small detail that’s keeping you from fully enjoying the troll soaking the crotch of your considerably holey jeans with his saliva. And that one tiny, insignificant, minuscule detail that your aphrodisiac riddled brain is actively attempting to shove into the furthest recesses never to see the light of day is the pile of dead bodies that you and the one who wants to pump you full of his genetic material are currently reclining on. A voice pings in your mind that these bodies are fresh, they haven’t even started rotting yet so don’t worry about. Why don’t you just lay back and focus on the fact that Makara’s tongue just found a hole in your jeans and is licking your taint as if doing so will help him find the road to salvation. You will not give into temptation even as exquisite as the troll’s exceedingly long and talented tongue. Strider focus or you’re going to end up having more than one bone in you. As much as it physically pains you to do so it is either now or never. You grab the fucker by a horn and yank his face up to meet yours. 

“If you’re going to do that motherfucker go lower to the base and dig in with the nubs you call nails.”

“Makara I’m trying to get your attention not get you off.” The troll glances perplexed between your face and your raging hard on. This would be easier if the fucker didn’t look like a puppy that you just forbid from playing with his favorite toy. “We are not fucking on a pile of corpses.” The puppy is gone, repeat the puppy is gone. Makara jolts up the pile; the armored shells on either side of your head snap crackle and pop in the clutches of his clawed hands. The troll is not pleased. And you are not budging.

“Don’t you FUCKING BULGE BLOCK ME NOW Strider,” he growls. “There isn’t a line that separates BLOOD LUST AND SEXUAL LUST for Capricorns.” That rumble went straight to your groin. Why is someone threatening to kill you suck a fucking turn on? There are so many things wrong with you; the list of what isn’t would probably be shorter. 

“Chuckle fuck I’m horny as hell and ready to go but I’m not doing it on a conglomeration of corpses.” He stares at you. Time to spell this out. “I don’t want to get impaled while we’re fucking.” Makara rubs a thumb over one of the intact spines and nods.

“I got a LANCE SHOVED UP MY NOOK once while pailing. That wasn’t a MOTHERFUCKING ENJOYABLE EXPERIENCE.” He shrugs, hauls you up by your jeans and throws you over his shoulder. You restrain yourself from flailing like a peeved little shit as he carts you off to his lair to ravish you.

“I am going to kill you,” you promise Makara as he strolls into his chambers paying no heed to the splintered remains of the door he annihilated earlier in the day. He pulls you off his shoulder and tosses you onto the spacious bed like platform.

“AFTER we pail,” he grins. Let’s take this cocky fucker down a notch. You flash step off of the bed pausing behind him long enough to draw your katana and slice off the remnants of his atrocious clown pajama bottoms. You then send the troll sprawling onto the bed with a well placed shoe to his lower back.

“I can handle that,” you smirk. He twists and flips onto his back, his upper half propped up by his forearms. The shit eating grin still hasn’t left his face. If anything it’s gotten bigger. Why the fuck is he so damn happy. 

_Oh._

You take off your shades to get a better look.

 _Oh my._

“Motherfucker,” you whisper reverently. It’s glorious, sublime, inspired. It’s enough to make the minds behind the more interesting sex toy websites that you lurk weep in joy. The only thing that would enhance the experience is a generous helping of well placed metal, but looking at the scaled ridges running up the tapered length from the considerable base you are assured of two things. You will be ruined for humans forever after taking this. And you will love it. You drag your eyes away from the troll’s glistening writhing desire and up to look at him. Makara is smiling like a Cheshire cat. 

“I see you shiver with ANTICI…PATION.” He… he… he couldn’t have…

“You’ve seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show?”

The troll snorts. “I’ve BURNED THROUGH several copies before I got it loaded onto my husktop.”

“I love that movie…”

“Come Rocky, show your creator some love,” he purrs. You grunt and shuck off your clothes stripping down to the bare skin. He rumbles approvingly as you crawl up to his bulge. You tentatively skim your fingers along the deep purple length slick with precome. His bulge takes your hesitant overture and kicks it into full gear curling around your wrist and winding through your fingers. His length languidly coils around your arm as you massage the muscle in time with its contractions. His temperature is a few degrees lower than your own and yet your skin is alight with pinpricks of heat. You succumb to the temptation of the coiling appendage and lower your lips to the root mouthing a trail up the scales to suck on the tip entwined in your fingers. You lap up the fluid leaking out of the tip letting it collect in your mouth. Once you have enough gathered you suck on three of your free fingers slicking them up for the next task. After you’re sufficiently satisfied that your digits have been properly drenched in saliva and precome you lower them and begin to slowly trace your entrance. A growl snaps you attention away from your preparation and up to the troll. He crooks a finger.

“I WANT to see.” You wiggle your eyebrows and slither up onto him. A bit of slinky maneuvering later and your back legs are straddling his torso, your plush rump in clear view for him. You’re propped up on one arm over his hip giving his playful member something to curl around as you continue your assault on it with your lips and tongue. Licking the bulge clean of the generous helping of precome is a losing battle but someone has to do it and you are a more than willing volunteer. Your other arm trails across your curved back to allow your fingers to stretch your hole into submission. Sixty nine is one of your favored positions. Just because it’s common doesn’t mean that it can’t be fun for everyone. Makara’s calloused hands roam over your tan skin before settling on kneading your plush rump. He spreads your cheeks apart with his thumbs as you press a slicked up finger pass your ring of muscle. You moan around his bulge as his tongue teases the puckered skin around your finger. A flick of his broad tongue across your taint has you convinced to let the professional do his job. You pull out your finger and turn all of your focus to the length wrapped around your tongue. Your fingers play along the scale ridges as he alternates between licking across, around, and dipping into your hole. A teasing dip of his tongue turns into much more as he pushes further in past your ring of muscle. The wet muscle brushes against your burning insides. You turn into a shivering mass of wanton need as he tongue fucks you, his bulge keeping in synch in your mouth. You give into your baser desires and untangle your tongue from his bulge, leaving you a panting mess. You tilt your head back looking over your shoulder.

“Makara, I need you. Now.” He snarls and nips a cheek before flipping you on your back. He situates himself on his knees between your legs and hooks his arms underneath your knees supporting your lower half with both hands cradling your waist. His well lubricated bulge languidly slides between the cleft of your ass to its intended destination. The tip rubs over your hole before pressing in. The pressure is steady as the relatively narrow tip snakes further inside. The progress slows to a halting crawl as the thicker middle of the bulge starts to fill you up. Each scaled bump pressing the ring of muscle to expand is larger than the last. The troll is patient where you are not. He sinks the base of his bulge into you at a glaciers pace allowing time for you to adjust. He’s gone deeper, stretching you further than all of your play toys both human and silicone. You close your eyes and focus on the burning pleasure of being opened wide, the agony and ecstasy of being filled to completion. You moan as his hips hit flush against yours. The momentary stillness of the troll has you concerned. You squirm against him in a vain the only friction you get is from his claws on your hipbones.

“WAIT.” 

“For what?” you snap. Makara chuckles in response. The thick scales along the base twist and the bulge thrashes sending out a ripple of pleasure and pain that shoots through your system. You hiss through your clenched teeth as your back arches forcing yourself into Makara’s grip. The bulge coils, spiraling ridges press up against your walls in a continuum of movement. It retreats and pushes forward, the constant waves of motion wearing down your resistance like water on sand. You don’t stand a chance against the onslaught of stimulation. And so you do the unthinkable, you give in and give up control. You let him wreck you; turning you into a panting moaning mess. Makara purrs as you let the tension wash away, the rumbling vibrations reaching to his tip. He picks up the pace and you claw at the sheets. You shiver as a scale brushes up against your prostate. He smirks and redirects his bulge rubbing against the spot with reckless abandon. You dig your nails into his arms as the coiling in your gut tightens under the assault. Your muscles tense and you cry out as you come. Makara growls as you constrict around him. A few more thrusts of his bulge and he orgasms flooding your insides with a series of shockingly cold torrents of come. Genetic material gushes out of hole and streams down your back and chest. You couldn’t care less. You are a satiated disaster. Makara leans forward and gently sets your sore hips down without withdrawing his bulge. He laps up puddles of your come off of your chest before giving you a pleased mischievous smirk. 

“What you didn’t think I was finished with just once did you?”


	18. Exotic Organic Death Machine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bro and Makara go on an adventure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have the best readers.

Is that?

No. 

Really?

Shit. 

Houston we have a problem. There is nothing wrong with our space ship because we don’t have a space ship. However, there is a space ship involved, a Big One. You’re naked, covered in drying green sludge, and burning out your sensitive eyeballs staring at the gargantuan shiny red behemoth currently breaching the barrier of your memory bubble with ease. Your walk of slime soaked shame back to the apartment was ever so rudely interrupted by a constant intrusive pressure gnawing at the fringes of your numbed mind. The hungry hungry caterpillar munching on your chemical ooze swaddled brain finally chomped down hard enough to get you to pay the fuck attention. You glance up and for a moment you think that you’re hallucinating. Which given the events that have transpired since your and the clown’s bubbles collided would not be that terribly surprising. But, after a good ten minutes of staring something quite disturbing dawns on you. You’re not hallucinating. There is a space ship in your bubble and you are not alone. 

A slide of your eyeballs down and to the right lands your burned out optics on a wall of grey. You look further up, an elbow, even further up, a shoulder, and even further still till you see what cannot be unseen, a Cheshire grin filled with prehistoric shark teeth. Why must he be such a creepy fucker? And why must he be so fucking tall? Attila the troll is in his full psychotic painted glory, all twelve feet of him thrumming with quiet excitement. He stares down at you with an almost manic glee. The adage never stick you dick in someone crazier than you pops into your head. Whelp, too late. 

“It’s another MOTHERFUCKING BUBBLE,” his attention darts from you, to the ship, and back. The massive alien looks like a puppy that just found a horde of tennis balls and you are the only one he knows with thumbs. 

“So it is.”

“If Solbro’s right and the nook is CURRENTLY ALIVE AND TERRORIZING A DIFFERENT MOTHERFUCKING UNIVERSE,” his voice quiets, “then this can only mean one motherfucking thing my pink fleshy bro,” he pauses for what you assume to be dramatic effect. “MiRaCleS.” 

“Miracles.”

“Yes. Miracles are happening to us AT THIS VERY MOMENT.” Never put your dick in someone crazier than you. And of course the reverse holds equally true if not more so, never let someone crazier than you put their dick in you. Given your laundry list of eccentricities you’ve never had to pay that certain saying any heed because well you were the crazy fucker that it was warning about. However, Makara is still rambling on about miracles and his clown gods blessing him with double death or bountiful rivers of faygo or bicycle horns. You aren’t quite sure because you aren’t paying close attention. He might just have you beat in the crazy department. “HE would be the only other one with the MOST TIES TO THE BATTLESHIP CONDESCENSION.” This might be important. 

“Back the insane train up and let me put on my Captain Obvious suit. That bubble belongs to a troll.” He nods. “A troll that you want to see.” He nods again. “And that troll tolerates you.” 

“TOLERATES is a strong word. More like he hasn’t TRIED TO KILL ME YET. No, he has attempted to cull me before. But that was MOTHERFUCKING EONS AGO.”  
“You want to go visit a troll that has previously tried to kill you?”

“That whole I’M GOING TO TORTURE AND CULL YOU IN THE MOST EXCRUCIATING WAYS KNOWN TO TROLL KIND was just a phase. He’s over it by now. Besides WE’RE COMRADES. And if all of the centuries worth of talking was just a LONG INTRICATE DANCE TO LULL ME INTO A FALSE SENSE OF SECURITY so that he could strike when I am vulnerable, I’m already MOTHERFUCKING DEAD. Where else am I going to go? PRAXIS FOUR?” he snorts. You attempt to find the will to care and fail gloriously; you’ve invested too much time perfecting the art of not giving a shit. Just because he put his bulge in you, and even though it is a magnificent bulge and you will miss it greatly, you do not feel compelled to dissuade him from his ill-advised quest. You’ve never forced someone to do something incredibly stupid, but you ‘re also not the type of person to stop someone else from doing something incredibly stupid as well. The only caveat being if the person in question is Dave and said idiotic action would result in a grievous injury. Minor injuries build character and therefore are completely acceptable if not required for attaining Striderhood.

“Have fun with that. I’m going to go scrape the green shit off and take a scalding hot shower until I forget that I know you.” Makara looks like a kicked puppy that knows that it deserves to be kicked but is still moping that you did it. How does an alien without pupils pull off the sad puppy face so well? “What?” He fidgets.

“I’M GOING TO need your help.” You glare at him. “You have SMALL NIMBLE fingers. I have big MOTHERFUCKERS.” He wiggles his giant meat hooks to prove his point. You’re still glaring. “I need your fingers Bro. I NEED THEM.” You want to know why and at the same time you don’t. “How HIGH IS YOUR TOLERANCE for weird shit?”

“I still talk to you.” He pauses momentarily weighing your comment.

“No, I mean WEIRD SHIT.”

“I fuck puppets, video tape it, and upload it to a website that I own and operate for both business and pleasure.” 

“BITCH TITS. You go take your absolution, I’m going to find CERTAIN … ITEMS, and then we can go.” Makara sprints off to his castle before you get a chance for a rebuttal. Looks like you’re going on an adventure. Fuck.

One two hour long shower, five minutes of slapping clothes on, and thirty minutes of stuffing your sylladex with every weapon your imagination wheedles you into bringing along on this grand adventure into the great unknown later, you swing open the front door and discover that your apartment is drifting aimlessly in space. You haven’t suffered from catastrophic decompression which is good. However, there is nothing but the void of space between you and the hulking metallic structure that has replaced Makara’s hive. Fuck this noiseless vacuum. You conjure up a bright orange space suit and launch yourself off of the outer wall of the apartment to the mass of silver honeycombs surrounding the troll ship. Weak gravity pulls you onto a platform and you bounce over to a waving purple suit. Your suit’s intercom crackles and hisses with static before you locate Makara’s channel. 

“Right now we’re in my memory of the ABEL SPACE STATION. If the Messiah’s bless us this isn’t my memory of when it GETS VAPORIZED so it will still be here when we return.” How reassuring. Doesn’t he have any memories of where shit isn’t hitting the proverbial fan? “I’ve located one of the TROOP DEPARTURE PORTS so we can gain entry into the lower levels. Once we cross the threshold we are out of our bubble and DEEP IN THE MOTHERFUCKING SHIT. Last crew and troop manifesto that I have access to lists the total count at 11,380.” Fuck that’s a high number. “Ready TO MAKE SOME CORPSES Strider?”

“Going on suicide missions just so my psychotic bubble mate can meet a dead troll who wants to kill him is my middle fucking name.” You follow the troll though the open hatch.

Not being ambushed the instant you and Makara exit the decompression chamber does little to assuage your nerves. The glaring lack life only serves to heighten your sense of alarm. Everything about this situation screams wrong. The ship is silent as a grave and just as welcoming. The corridors are lit by a thin strip of fiber optic cable flanking the metal plate floor. The plastic coating bathes the hallway a red hue. This is a ghost ship drenched in blood. Thanks overactive imagination. The fucker that suggested this venture into the heart of darkness is fiddling with a panel imbedded in the forearm of his suit. 

“The ship’s running on auxiliary power. Life support is functional and at full capacity. Life form count is ZERO MOTHERFUCKERS. ”

“So the monster lying in wait to rub us out in this B movie is dead just like us.” 

“Strider you’re only truly alive when another motherfucker is ACTIVELY PLOTTING TO CULL YOU.”

“I’ll keep those pearls of wisdom in mind when the acid spitting alien is chowing down on your entrails.” The troll honks in amusement as he plucks a small metallic cube out of his sylladex. “Now you’re throwing Hellraiser into the mix? Not satisfied with the haunted house in space motif?” 

“Meat sack SHUT YOUR WIND HOLE and watch as I blow your primitive think pan.” Makara twists the device like a rubix cube and releases the glowing object. You golf clap as the radiating ball of green florescent light hovers a few feet off the floor. 

“So what now?”

“We FOLLOW the tracker.”

“Sounds simple enough.”

An hour into following the geriatric glowing green orb through miles of identical corridors lined with locked doors you start to yearn for something to break the monotony of walking to a teleporter, teleporting to the next level, getting off the teleporter, and walking to surprise yet another teleporter. You don’t need an exotic organic death machine chasing after you, but at least a few zombies would be nice. Slow twitch, fast twitch, it’s all good. Your daydream of being chased by zombified Chippendale dancers down the Las Vegas Strip gets interrupted by a string of annoyed clicks and growls. The teleporter on this floor isn’t working, which is mildly ironic because it’s in the maintenance bay. The troll kicks the recalcitrant bastard like it owes him back rent. It seems that hitting electric devices until they work is another universal constant. The questionable at best machine sputters and clunks before it activates. Your inner voice tells you that the piece of shit isn’t safe. You’ve spent the majority of your life ignoring him, why start listening now?

The hunk of malfunctioning refuse deposits you and the troll at the base of a massive bank vault door shaped like a gear. Elaborate runes are engraved in concentric circles that extend to the outer edges. For some reason Viking Mayan calendar comes to mind. You notice on further inspection that the door is welded shut from the outside. The knot in your stomach refuses to be ignored. The tracker orb pulses three times before returning to Makara. 

“What being in existence would compel a race of intergalactic conquerors to go as far as welding a door shut?”

The troll dryly chuckles. “A DESTROYER OF WORLDS.” Makara takes out two torch cutters and tosses one to you. What the hell. You’re already dead. Where else are you going to go, Detroit? A rush of stale air fills the room once the seal is broken. 

“Jesus Christ.” You’ve watched enough hentai to know where this is going. The haunted house movie in space just turned into a Japanese tentacle porno. The floor and ceiling are coated in a writhing mass of pink cables. You follow the trail to their source and figure out just why Makara asked you how high your tolerance to weird shit was before embarking on this venture. The ropes of cables are entwined around an emaciated troll forming a column in the center of the room. The cables extending from the ceiling hold his outstretched arms over his head. The cables on the floor anchor the lower half of his body leaving only part of his cadaverous torso exposed. His head is bowed, chin resting between his collarbones. Vivid yellow streaks dribble down his cheeks from his goggles. His death was neither quick nor painless. “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds,” you whisper under your breath.

“He is the HELMSMAN.” The helmsman raises his head to survey the interlopers of his realm. You impress him as much as the unfortunate splattered remains one could find plastered on the hull of the battleship. He outright cackles at Makara. This could be a good sign, or a very bad one.

“Sup nookstain. I didn’t think that it was possible GH but you’ve gotten even more hideous since the last time that I had the displeasure of seeing your face.” That is one hell of an unfortunate lisp.

“Captor you’re a motherfucking RAY OF SUNSHINE.”

“Awww, I light up the series of mistakes you try to path off as your life?”

“No, your glowing personality BURNS THE FLESH right off of my bones.”

“It warmth the conkles of my nonexistent bloodpusher to know that I bring you so much joy. My hallucinations don’t have such a witty repertoire so that must mean that something managed to cull you. Who do I make the Thank You message out to?”

“The Vast Glub. Gl'bgolyb was destroyed along with Alternia in a hail of asteroids.” 

“I fried out my think pan trying to get the ship back to Alternia to stop the Vast Glub. Figures it would take the end of all troll kind to kill you. What of the Empress?”

“She LIVED ON to terrorize another motherfucking universe.”

“That’s my Meenah. Not even the end of the species can keep her down.” 

“YOUR Meenah?”

“What can I say? Eternity its a long fucking time I have to get my bulges wet somehow.”

“I thought that you would at least have BETTER FUCKING TASTE than that nook.”

He shrugs. “I don’t get out much, I take what bitches I can get. I doubt that you came here to fill your spank bank with tales of my riveting sexual escapades, so what is your purpose GH? Why must you disturb the well deserved sleep of the dead?”

“I’m here to extricate YOUR RANCID CARCASS.”

“Extricate? That's a fucking impressive word for a subjugglator. I would give you a gold star but I’m a little tied up at the moment. You seem much more lucid than the last time that we spoke. Dying must have healed the lesions in your think pan caused by your sopor addiction so stop spouting crazy shit. I cannot leave this ship.” 

“Mituna, you’re MOTHERFUCKING DEAD. You don’t HAVE TO SUFFER for the Empire any longer.”

“You just can’t wait to get your meat hooks on my sexy bod. Of course you would only be interested in me once I became a corpse.” The troll’s demeanor sobers. “Why Kurloz? Why don’t you let me rot in peace?”

“You shouldn’t have to motherfucking ask bro.”

“You feel responsible for my instillation.” Makara’s silence is testament enough for the helmsmen. “Will it hurt?” 

“It will be the second most excruciating pain that you have ever felt.”

“It will hurt less than seeing your grotesque face? Bring it on corpsefucker.”


	19. F-Bomb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quality bro time.

The pleasant hum of the air conditioner unit, the feel of gravel crunching beneath your jeans, the clink of glass as you remove a longneck from the six pack, the cool beads of condensation rolling down your fingers, you need these. You close your eyes as the warm breeze plays along your skin, for a fleeting moment you’re back in Texas drinking beer on the top of your apartment building on a late summer night. You could allow yourself to drift off in the comforting familiarity and let nostalgia soothe away the unworldly terrors that plague your thoughts until they become nothing more than an unwelcomed dream. You could bury all that transpired yesterday deep enough that you think it was repressed. You could dismiss your admiration of the helmsman. You could choose to forget that during the hours it took you and Makara to remove all of the cables and wires embedded in his skin he didn’t scream. Not even once. The only sign that he was in pain were a few stifled hisses that escaped from his clenched teeth. You could break off the piece of yourself that believes if he can remain unbroken after enduring an unimaginable personal hell then you could stitch the pieces of yourself back together. You could break off yet another piece or you could try to save your shattered soul. You could do so many things. All you need to do is take the first step. The direction of that step depends solely on you. 

“I’m gonna lay it down for you bro. This is heavy shit. I’m going to wade through the deep dark recesses of my twisted mind.” You take off your shades. “Yeah it’s that serious Cal. I’m gonna drop the f-bomb.” Cal is looking up to you with his big blue eyes and there is nothing for you to hide behind. “It’s time for me to man the fuck up and talk to you about my…” fuck your throat is so dry, what did you go and give the Sahara desert a blow job? You can do this. It’s just a word. If you can cut a flaming meteor in half you can say a word. Cal’s your main man he isn’t here to judge you; he’s here to give you much needed bro support. Just look at how supporting he’s being. He’s got ergonomic chairs beat in a landslide. You can trust him. He’s got your back. “F-f-feelings,” you croak out. That’s one small step for Bro, one giant leap for all Brokind. 

In what fucked up universe does talking about feelings seem more draining than strifing? Technically dream bubbles are not located in a universe; more like in they exist in the area between universes. So it’s the lack of being in a universe that causes said phenomenon. Doesn’t mean that it doesn’t suck any less. You’ve been loitering up on the roof with your best bro for hours, only talking for a minuscule fraction of that time. The irony of the situation is that you fled to the roof the moment you caught wind of an emotional connection that surpassed perfunctory broship between Makara and the helmsman only to wind up talking about your own emotions with your best bro. Attila said that he and Captor were comrades. Two trolls cursed by the Empress to eternal servitude. Makara and Captor seem to have more than just a bromradeship forged in a thousand sweeps of service to the Alternian Empire. Makara’s actions towards the other troll were downright bromantic. 

The revelation that Makara is much more than just Attila the psychotic murder troll has you astounded to no end. Before his bubble decided to unceremoniously crash into yours, he passed his time fighting, sleeping, pailing, and painting. Three of the four activities he spent with or on the pile of corpses he amassed in his blood soaked castle. Makara is crazier than a shit house rat left broiling out in the Texas sun at the height of summer. At first glance the excursion into the space ship to retrieve Captor is a fucking radioactive glowing example of your bubble mate’s obvious lack of sanity and overwhelming bloodlust. What if the ship hadn’t been empty? Makara must have had a contingency plan. The last records he had said that the total compliment of crew and soldiers was around 11,380. 11,380 to two is suicidal. But he took those odds and so did you. You were dead and bored. Makara was well himself. He exudes this Kenpachi vibe. It’s understandable for a creature of carnage like him to go into battle against thousands just so he would have a chance to get his fill of killing. However, the murder clown is also a creature of principals. His adherence to his code of conduct molded by his religious fanaticism and totalitarian political views is unwavering. Removing the helmsman from the column could have been out of a sense of duty to a fellow soldier. Makara’s executive decision to take the unconscious troll out of the ship is also understandable. It was the troll’s actions that occurred once he returned to the bubble that got you thinking. 

Makara cajoled you into letting Captor recuperate in your apartment. You questioned him why the helmsman couldn’t stay at the castle. He said that some memories can do more damage than a medicalcarver’s knives and promptly ended the conversation. Once Makara had figured out how to shrink Captor from his troll size to a more manageable apartment dwelling human size he then got down to business. He carefully stripped the helmsman’s suit off, gingerly removing bits and pieces of wire that had been missed. Makara then gently scrubbed down Captor’s slight frame washing off countless layers of grime and other question substances you did not want to identify. After your tub had been drained for the final time Makara wrapped up the troll in a cocoon of sopor soaked towels with an outer layer of blankets. He then laid down his swaddled bundle in his pile of smuppets in the corner of the living room. If you hadn’t seen the way Makara looked while brushing damp locks of hair away from the sleeping troll’s face you wouldn’t have believed it. He seemed content. You took the disturbing notion that the Grand Highblood might have a squishy nougat center deep deep deep deep deep down as your cue to get the fuck out of dodge. 

But that had all happened hours ago. You can’t hide on the roof top forever. Technically you can hide up here for the rest of eternity or until the most recent big bad gets around to annihilating the rest of existence. However, your best bro is not one to let your hermitic lifestyle choices slide. Learning to deal with emotions means that you not only have to figure out your own shit, but be able to deal with other people’s shit and how it might affect you in a healthy manner. You should have never let Cal watch Dr. Phil. You give in to his prodding and start the descent down the stairs. At the door you hesitate momentarily. From the sound of it both trolls are awake and ankle deep in a bullshit session.

“Bitch came around to my wiles motherfucker.”

“May the angel of double death take pity on your heretical corpse BECAUSE I MOTHERFUCKING WON’T if you keep talking about the fish hag’s vestigial venom glands.”

“Bitch tits,” Captor snickers. Makara’s diesel engine growl is interrupted by a high pitch weed whacker buzzing chirp. You aren’t sure if Captor is laughing or having a seizure. 

“Fish pailer.”

“Frondhumping corpse fucker I will stop scaring your lesion riddle think pan with tales of her magnificent tits…”

“AY- MOTHERFUCKIN- MEN.” 

“… on one fucking condition.” Pause for dramatic effect, or a sip of tea, you can’t see what the hell’s going on. “We discuss the pink flesh bag.” 

“Motherfuck no.”

“No shit there I was, her pendulous breasts in all of their fair radiant venomous glory …” sounds like Makara’s gagging. 

“BLASPHEMOUS LISPING FUCK.” 

“Works like a fucking charm.”

“Proceed with your INTERROGATION.”

“So did you pail him or cull him first?”

“Pail. I haven’t CULLED THE DIURNAL BULGE HUMPER yet.”

“No rousing games of smear the mammal?”

“I have not felt compelled by the messiahs to PAINT THE WALLS WITH HIS BLOOD.”

“I call hoof beast shit.” 

“THE HUMAN AND I are in a … mutual tolerance.” That gasp was audible though the wall.

“You’re shitting me.”

“I SHIT YOU NOT my miraculous bro.”

“You haven’t even culled him with the club you keep in your ridiculous clown pants?”

“No.”

“Damn. So how is he?”

“A motherfucking HOT BLOODED MIRACLE.”

“He’s warm?”

“He’s fucking SWELTERING. It’s like I got a FUCKING SUN ENGULFING my bulge. Bro’s got me ruined for anything higher than a rustblood. Fucker’s heat isn’t even the BEST MOTHERFUCKING PART.” Makara’s voice lowers. “He willingly… WILLINGLY… let me pail him in his waste chute.” And Captor just snarfed whatever he’s drinking. 

“Seriously?”

“I SWEAR TO THE MIRTHFUL MESSIAHS what I tell you is the motherfucking truth.” Now for a faygo pause. “Fucker reminds me of Zahhak.”

“What, he’s got a raging hoof beast fetish too?”

“Besides that, MOTHERFUCKER JUST VANISHES. He’s behind me isn’t he?” You would think that given his starring role in a sci-fi hentai that Captor would have a higher threshold for the strange and unusual. He doesn’t. The look on his face is priceless. Makara huffs and sets his two liter of carbonated sugar water down. “His name is Cal. He’s Bro’s moirail, don’t ask. And no he’s not an emissary to the horror terrors.” You give the stunned alien a slight nod before walking over to the t.v.

“GH have you ever heard of the phrase never stick your bulge into someone crazier than you?” 

“Too motherfucking late.” Honk.


	20. Astrological Sleepwear Cult

There comes a time in every self- respecting man’s life when he must realize that he is woefully overdressed for the occasion. This is one such occasion. Your customary ensemble of black skinny jeans and a white polo are just too fabulous for this soirée. Pajamas are a prerequisite for attending a pajama party. Yeah that’s right brain try to keep up. A pajama party is going on in your living room at this very moment; a one hundred percent not held for ironic purposes pajama party with aliens. Makara and Captor are lounging on a mountain range of smuppets around the much abused wooden plank on cinderblocks that you pass off as a coffee table in sleepwear. The current state of trolls in repose is the result of a freshly minted truce. A Cold War swept over the bubble like a might Siberian snowstorm and held your slice of rust paradise fast in its icy grip for weeks. The passive aggressive shit fest that engulfed your domain sparked up when Captor put on his helmsmen suit once his got fed up with fermenting in a cocoon of sopor soaked towels. The real war started with Makara bitching the other troll out about wearing his suit of doom. Anything mildly associated with the quote “MOTHERFUCKING SEA WITCH” offended his delicate sensibilities, and pissing Makara off amused Captor to no end. 

Eventually you threatened the trolls with a marathon of excruciatingly detailed videos on the human reproductive system dug out of the pits of health class hell if they didn’t sort out their shit. All you had to do was use mammal and live birth in the same sentence to get them to begrudgingly reach an agreement. Captor agreed to cover his scrawny ass in something less offensive if Makara agreed to tone the clown fashion disaster down. The psychotic ass grumbled that the mirthful messiah’s would get their understanding on about his righteous vestments but the paint stayed. He swapped out his most wicked attire for a different pair of clown pants, now black with purple polka dots instead black with purple diamonds, and a black t-shirt with a purple Capricorn symbol. Captor opted for pants with honeycomb pattern and an assortment of bees along with a black t-shirt with a yellow Gemini symbol. And now you feel left out of the spontaneous pajama party. You decide to slip into something a bit more comfortable in the bathroom because Captor has forgotten the meaning of privacy. It must be a side effect of being able to hack into any camera in the known universe and living vicariously through the unknowing saps getting spied on. After a quick double check of your hasty induction into the astrological sleepwear cult you walk out of the bathroom to the living room where the two trolls are working on their arts and crafts projects. 

“I MOTHERFUCKING KNEW IT.” Makara is one excited little shit. Fucker’s pulling a repeat performance as the wide-eyed thrumming ball of whimsical mayhem you first saw when he found out that humans came up with different flavors of Faygo than the trolls, and that you remembered them well enough to recreate them using the wonders of bubble magic. You’ve never seen anyone get as worked up over Moon Mist as him. The only difference between this moment and the last is that the troll isn’t reverently whispering miracles. All you did was change what you’re wearing. “Bro’s a SAGITTARIUS. He even has COLORFUL LITTLE HOOFBEASTS on his pants.” 

“My Little Pony is the bomb yo.”

“That explains the folders full of hoofbeast clogging your primitive husktop.” Bee boy picks up a smuppet off the multicolored mound and gives it a half- hearted squeeze. “Not the pan searing pail inducement videos though. What has been seen cannot be unseen.” 

“Plush puppet rumps not your forte bro?” The troll is not amused.

“Subjecting myself to that shit falls somewhere between having cameras installed in GH’s personal chambers and you asking him to use his chuckle voodoos on you. How masochistic are you? Or does your species just not have any self preservation instincts?” 

“I did MOTHERFUCKING WARN you bro.” Makara did warn you that chuckle voodoos were more than just a playful clown mind fuck. But be it your rampant hubris or the few drops of blood circulating in your alcohol system you had to know about the voodoo that he could do so well. Curiosity didn’t kill the cat but it did make you sprint to the bathroom to worship the porcelain god and gave you one hell of a migraine for a few days afterwards. You really need to stop drinking tequila with trolls.  
You also really need to stop staring at the scrawny troll train wreck sitting next to you. Forcing someone who hasn’t used their hands in who knows when to thread a needle under the guise of rehabilitation is just fucking sadistic. Rehabilitating his fine motor skills your lovely Strider lumps. A Parkinson’s patient with rheumatoid arthritis would have a better chance than the lisping bastard and his trembling twig arms propped up on the table. Sticking out his yellow forked tongue proves equally useless and only leads to it getting gnawed on in frustration. One overly dramatic hiss later Captor caves and uses his psionics to thread the needle, sift through the mound of felt and fleece, cut said fabric into pieces and organize them into orderly piles in front of himself. Makara being the raging sadist that he is growls at the cheater and Captor replies with crackling red and blue sparks from his two sets of horns. The two trolls glare at each other over the mass of colorful fabric the smell of ozone fresh in the air. Makara produces a noise that sounds like he ground out a transmission gear and turns his attention back to his juggalo smuppet. 

Attila just turned down the opportunity for a fight. Your little psychotic capricious fucker is growing up. Or maybe he doesn’t want to suffer the indignity of getting his ass handed to him by the lisping bastard. From what you remember from drunken story time Makara can single handedly cull every living being on a ship and theoretically every being on a planet if given enough time and supplies. However, Captor can skip the time consuming process of hunting everyone down one by one and just destroy the entire planet. And how do you know that that isn’t wild speculation? Because he’s done it. Captor reduced a planet to a ball of molten slag after the fish hag dosed him with mind honey because she wanted to know what would happen. Mind honey is a hell of a drug. 

A loud popping crack rips your attention away from your vital smuppet repairs. Captor seems unfazed filling a misshapen pink and yellow striped fleece glob with stuffing. Across the table Makara’s head is cocked to the side, his eyes narrowed into slits. 

“Intruders up and wormed their way into our bubble,” he rumbles. If it was Sollux or Aradia they would have just popped into the apartment. There is a chance though that they would play it safe around an unknown adult troll, but unlikely given their track record. “Wanna go and SUBJUGGLATE SOME TRESPASSING MOTHERFUCKERS bro?” You smirk and equip your katana as you walk to the front door.

“I’d thought you’d never ask.” Makara hesitates at the door and the other troll lazily waves you two off.

“I’m going to finish my bee. Have fun storming the castle.” It’s a bee. Huh. You wouldn’t have guessed that. Outside of the apartment Makara shoots up to his full size and switches into his culling duds. He takes a few deep breaths and grins revealing his prehistoric shark teeth. Lazing around with the clown numbs you to the fact that he looks like he eats souls for breakfast. It’s hard to take someone serious after you see them pass out on a pile of smuppets after coming down from a skittle and Faygo induced sugar high.

“I smell FEAR,” the monster chuckles, “and SEA SALT.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is going to hit the fan.


	21. It Can Always Get Worse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It hits the fan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First off I want to thank all of my readers for sticking around for as long as you have and to welcome all of the new ones to my cracked ship. I can't thank you enough for all of the wonderful amazing comments and gushing that I doubt this story deserves but I appreciate them all so very much. They are a great pick me up when I get bogged down while writing. I hope that you enjoy reading this chapter as much as I have writing it. There isn't anything quite like writing down a chapter that's been kicking around my head for a couple of months. Cheers.

There is nowhere she can run where he will not follow. 

Instinct told her not to believe the lies that left his lips. Self-preservation formed by millennia of natural selection drove every fiber in her being to flee before he could draw close the eloquent net of deception he spun around her. She ran, and he followed. He left the self -enforced solitude of his ship for the first time in centuries to trail his game through her memory bubble and others scattered across the vast emptiness of space. The frantic chase is nearing its forgone conclusion. He is within her sight. She is fleeing for her life and he is leisurely strolling behind her, the length of his adult gait compensating for the distance lost by his languid pace. For him it is a matter of inevitability. For her it is to not to learn the varieties of fates worse than death.

Her blood pusher is pounding, threatening to escape from behind its shield of bone. Her air sacs burn with each gulping breath as the shards of rock cut into her soles. The thickened callouses on her dainty feet built up from the seemingly endless hunt serve little protection from the unforgiving desert terrain as she runs to the cluster of black spiraling towers. For a brief moment a glimmer of hope creeps into her strained blood pusher. The fortress is massive, a labyrinthine network of corridors, chambers, and spires. She could hide, and perhaps just perhaps he could grow tired of searching. The sharp click of his boots on the stone floor pulls her out of her hopeful dream and sends her padding deeper into the complex. As she descends further into the heart of darkness the air grows thick from smoke and a metallic scent that she can’t quite place. Her subconscious determines the odor before she can and warns her to turn back. The warning is too late. She cries out as she slips and falls into a puddle in her panicked haste. The clicking of hardened leather against stone grows louder before stopping a nerve wrenchingly short distance away.

“Wvell wvell wvell wvell, wvhat do I havwe here?” She slowly turns her head to look over her shoulder. Her pursuer is stock-still. The lip curled up in a sneer straightens out into a thin line. His fins, his mark of royalty, droop down till they nearly close. He is the Orphaner Dualscar of legend. Who could strike such terror into him? She follows the adult troll’s line of sight skimming over the walls coated with smears of various shades of yellows, browns, greens, blues and even purples. A single red hand print is visible among the colorful bloody chaos. The scale of it is daunting. It can get worse. It can always get worse. And it just did. If the cult of the Sufferer held him as their Messiah then the monster sitting on his throne of skulls and bones is most certainly the Devil.

“Gl'bgolyb.” 

“HERE FISHY FISHY FISHY. HEREEEE FISHY FISHY FISHY. HEY DUALSCAR, heard any GOOD JOKES lately?” 

You are thrilled at not being the cullbait standing at the entrance to chucklefuck's throne room. 

The intruder visibly shakes. The cigarette precariously perched in his mouth falls to the floor and sizzles out in a pool of congealing blood at his feet. Captor wasn’t kidding when he told you that the rest of the universe thought the Grand Highblood was pants shitting terrifying. Your night vision is a far cry from a troll’s however the troll in great need of a fresh pair of pants seems to be more of one that would elicit said need instead of being the one in need. The fucker is built like a predator. From his gleaming white fangs to sleek yet substantial frame and sharpened claws, there is no doubt that things will end badly for whatever dumb shit decides to fuck with him. And of course the two trench like scars that run diagonally across his face from his hairline to his solid square jaw and horns that look like well- honed lightning bolts that jut out of the follicular masterpiece of his hair just add points for sheer badassery. But the feature that strikes you the most is his cape. It’s not the fact that he’s wearing a cape, but the silhouette. There is nothing more effective at driving fear into the hearts of your enemies than to remind them of a creature that kills its victims by ripping them apart limb from limb. Death by imperial drone is easily in your top five ways you do not want to die. 

“Of all the memory bubbles, in all the universes, in all of existence, YOU WALK INTO MINE.”

“Howv?

“THE VAST GLUB. Are you surprised? Even THE BRINGER OF DEATH can die water breather.” Dualscar grinds his teeth together. “Looks like I OFFENDED THE FISH.” The troll snaps.

“I am a prince. I am royalty. You wvill do wvell to remember your place peasant,” he glowers. Bad move.

“I AM THE GRAND MOTHERFUCKING HIGHBLOOD. ALL ARE BENEATH ME.” Makara’s response is more of a roar than a reply. Sitting down beside his throne was a bad decision on your part. You’re going to need new eardrums if this alien dick measuring contest continues for much longer. There’s something on the floor between the two adult trolls swapping insults. You peer over the top of your shades to get a better look. It’s not something. It’s someone, a crumpled up troll girl lying in a pool of blood. Makara said that he had smelled fear. Seems like you and he were too distracted hiding the gigantic smuppet mound to create the perfect murderous ambiance to notice her arrival. You tap the side of Makara’s leg with the flat of your blade and point to the girl in the center of the room. Both trolls go silent as the Grand Highblood surveys the second intruder in his castle. The girl is petrified, Dualscar is grimacing, and Makara is expressionless. 

“It looks like your obsession knows no motherfucking bounds Dualscar. I was planning on torturing you till I grew tired of your screams, however now, now I need to think of a punishment more suiting of your crimes. Your quarry is Feferi Peixes, the heiress, the one chosen by Gl’bgolyb emissary of the horror terrors. She was one trident thrust away from claiming the throne of the Alternian Empire. You have committed High Treason against the Empress to be and as the Grand Highblood I will carry out your well- deserved punishment.”

“High Treason,” the troll scoffs. “You said it yourself highblood, you died in the Vwast Glub. Alternia no longer exists. There is no Empire and there is no Empress. Wve are no more than dead trolls bickering amongst ourselvwes in the afterlife. If you cull me it wvill be for your owvn self-satisfaction.” 

“Do not forget who I motherfucking am. I am the Grand Highblood and I will always be the Grand Highblood. AND I WILL MAKE YOU PAY FOR YOUR CRIMES,” he growls as he rises out of his throne and takes up his blood splattered club. Dualscar raises rifle and points it directly at the heiress.

“Movwe and I wvill end her.”

“Chucklefuck do you think he knows that the dead won’t stay dead if he kills us?” 

“The fish might. But letting that water breather cull the heiress isn’t high on my motherfucking list of shit I don’t mind happening on my watch.” 

“Would your chuckle voodoos work on him?”

“I can cull him with my voodoos but he’s a sea dweller.” You shoot him a puzzled look. “Chuckle voodoos are less effective the higher the motherfucker is on the hemospectrum. I have more potent chuckle voodoos than other Capricorns so I can kill him with them…”

“But…”

“But if I projected my voodoos at a high enough level to cull him I would kill every other motherfucker in the room in the most excruciating way possible.” 

“Which would make getting vaporized the much better option.”

“Yep.”

“I could flash step her out of the way.”

“Bro he is the Orphaner, both he and his rifle Ahab’s Crosshairs are fucking legendary. You might be fast, but you’re no match for his reflexes or firepower.”

“So?”

“We wait.”

“For what?” The troll grins and a blue and red sparking ball pops into the throne room. 

“FF!” The sparking troll yells and runs over to Feferi, placing himself between her and Dualscar’s line of fire. 

“Sollux?” He glances down to her.

“Deja vue huh? Protecting you isn’t such a bad reason to go from half dead to all dead.” He turns his attention back to Dualscar, his fists clenched, and his eyes sparking. 

“FUCKING WRIGGERS. It’s the WRONG MOTHERFUCKING Captor.” Makara looks like he’s going to blow a gasket.

“So I take it that this isn’t the dramatic rescue that you had in mind.” He skips the growl and goes straight to the rumble.

“Captor?” the troll with the gun questions. His eyes flicker between the two teenage trolls before he snarls his face fins flaring out. “You twvo are flushed for each other. His descendent and the heiress are flushed,” he hisses and shoulders his rifle.

“Fuck we don’t have time to wait.”

Half the castle disappears in a flash of light.

This is what Makara was waiting for. A black and yellow stick picks its way into the remaining half of the throne room.

“Sup bitches.”

“Captor you beautiful bastard.” 

Makara cackles. “Bro you didn’t have to ANNIHILATE HALF OF MY HIVE.”

The troll shrugs. “Destruction of personal property is my specialty.” He notices the younger trolls staring at him in awe. “I have a descendent.” He grins. “I have a descendent.”

“Oh for fucks sakes.” He doesn’t walk in. He doesn’t stroll in. He fucking swaggers, rifle in his right hand a lit cigarette between his fingers in his left.

“Thanks for charging my energy cells and for the light chief.” Dualscar looks at his reflection on his rifle and fixes his hair. The fucker isn’t even singed. You have the feeling that the both of you would have gotten along swimmingly if he wasn’t actively trying to kill everyone. “Wvhat you didn’t think that that wvould kill me did you?” He takes a puff. “You did manage to push me back, quite an impressivwe feat for a peasant.” What’s really impressive is the fact that the grease in his hair hasn’t lit up from his cigarette as he primps. Makara, Sollux and Feferi are staring Psi who is absolutely fixated on Dualscar, running his bifurcated tongue over his top lip.

“Makara what the fuck are you doing?” you quietly hiss.

“Rebuilding the pile I’m not motherfucking missing this.” He ejects the smuppets he had in his sylladex and stealthily mounds them into a pile before crawling into it. Makara pats a spot on the pile near him and you warily sit down. The two younger trolls beat a hasty retreat back to the relative safety of Mount Smuppet and away from the two adults locked in a glaring contest. 

“What?”

“Shhh just watch.” He tilts a container full of multi colored spheres towards you. “Grubcorn?” You take a handful. The day stopped making sense the moment you put on your My Little Pony pjs, might as well just roll with it. Captor is the first one to break the silence. 

“No nubslurping bulgefondler has ever faced me and survived.”

“You shouldn’t expect any less from the best kitten.” Dualscar just oozes smug.

“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind princess. Did you develop a taste for pailing wrigglers before or after GH culled you? Or are you chasing FF because you still haven’t gotten over your obsession with CN?” Dualscar’s fins flare. “Oh wait, I was mistaken. You were never interested in her, just her power. No wonder the Empress ordered GH to dispose of you.” The other troll growls.

“The juggalo culled me because his defectivwe think pan is incapable of understanding the intricacies of sea dwveller humor.”

“We all like to dream don’t we?” Dualscar lunges at Captor pining him against one of the remaining walls.

“You knowv nothing about her,” he snarls.

“I am her helmsman. Her confidant.” Captor places his hands on Dualscar’s sides sliding them up until they are right along his ribcage. “And her matesprit.” He digs in his claws as he leans up to Dualscar’s ear. “The clothes you’ll ever get to her is tasting my nook.” Captor rolls back on the balls of his feet. Dualscar fists Captor’s shaggy mop of hair and yanks him in for a fang ridden kiss. Captor pulls Dualscar back by the base of his horn. “Your ship or mine?” he purrs.

“Yours.” The pair pops out of the bubble.

"Bro, I think that this is the beginning of a beautiful kismesissitude ." 

“Are we just going to let them leave?”

“Do you want to go tell a troll that can DESTROY PLANETS WITH HIS MIND that we’re going to cull the troll he wants to have hate sex with cause I motherfucking don’t.”

“Good point.”

“Umm FF and I are just gonna go now. I’ll talk to my ancestor when he doesn’t have is tongue shoved down someone’s throat.” 

“Heiress if any motherfucker gives you trouble let me know and I’ll TAKE CARE OF IT.” 

“Thank you for everyfin.” She bows and with that they popped out of the bubble. 

“Makara are you ok, your eye is twitching?”

“I motherfucking HATE FISH PUNS.”


	22. Tell Me a Joke

“Hey Bro.” 

“Yeah.”

“We’re alone, the only TWO MOTHERFUCKERS in the bubble.”

“We are alone, right this very second. Two bros alone, deepening their bonds of bropship on the sacred smuppet mountain of brohood.” Makara leans towards you shifting the multicolored mound and smirks.

“WANNA PAIL on my throne?” he asks as he wiggles his caterpillar eyebrows hidden beneath his metal head mane. You consider the proposition for a whole hot second.

“Okay. But go slap up a wall I don’t want anyone getting a free peek at my quality goods.” He chuckles at free peek.

“Bro you used to RECORD PAIL INDUCEMENT VIDEOS and post them online for people to watch.”

“I did record pail inducement videos with smuppets and my glorious man meat as a side character and posted them online for people to pay to watch,” emphasis on the pay. “I’m a classy expensive exhibitionist. Your talents as a personal chef are just enough to pay for a taste of my prime Strider meat.”

“Strider are you motherfucking sure it’s my righteous cooking skills that gets you PANTING FOR MY BULGE and not the fact that YOU HAVE THE PRIVILEGE to get fucked by the best in two universes?” 

“Makara if I wanted to get my freak on with the best I’d masturbate.”

The vaporized half of the castle reforms as the troll strolls over to his throne. It reminds you of a game of Tetris with one ton stone blocks. The gargantuan carved wooden doors to the grand hall materialize and lock as he reclines in his seat of power comprised of the skulls and bones of his vanquished enemies. The conqueror of worlds has a shit eating grin on his face. 

“That’s right, I up and motherfucking forgot that the FRAGILE CLAWLESS PINK TWIGS that you call fingers are only good for PRODDING UP YOUR OWN WASTECHUTE.”

“These little miracles are good for more than just that sugar horns,” you smirk.

“PROVE IT MEAT SACK.” He leers as he beckons you over.

“I’ve heard of a size kink but damn.” 

“Strider, wall, wall, wall, wall, deity”, he points to each wall and then to himself. “In here I’m your own PERSONAL MIRTHFUL MESSIAH. MY CASTLE MY RULES and don’t act like you don’t pull this motherfucking shit in your own hive ALL THE FUCKING TIME.” He’s got a point. If he can shrink down to fit into your apartment you can figure out how to increase your size to suit him from time to time. 

“I’m only playing along because I have some inexplicable attachment to your whimsical psychotic ass.” It takes you a few attempts before you manage to successfully scale up. You saunter over to him and climb up straddling his lap, your legs bracketing his. Makara licks his lips as his eyes eat you up like the delectable morsel you are. He flattens out his massive mitts on your torso. His fingertips follow the contours of your strife earned abdominals through the thin fabric of your shirt. He lingers at the waistband of your jeans before sliding his hands over your hipbones and takes the short jaunt down your lower back to sink his fingers into your denim covered toned flesh.

“Can’t get enough of my plush rump can yah?” He rumbles happily as he kneads your quality goods. You scoot forward and grind your growing erection against the awakening bulge in his pants. A few moments of blissful grinding convinces you that you and he have far too many clothes on to continue this party. You take off your shades and look up. His eyes meet yours. This is as close to Makara as you have ever been while sober. There isn’t a drop of tequila, sopor, or aphrodisiac drone blood coursing through yours or his system. In this moment there is just you and him. He removes your hat and you don’t quite care where he tosses it. Makara threads his fingers through your stiff styled hair and you lean in just until your lips almost touch. A jolt runs down your spine. The growl you hear is close to subsonic. 

“I’m guessing what I just felt wasn’t your animal magnetism.”

“There is an intruder filled with unfettered rage in the bubble. I invoke the right of dibs to TURN THE INVADER INTO PASTE.”

“Fine but I’m helping you paint the walls with whatever’s left.” You hop off his lap. He equips his blood splattered club. You follow behind him which proves to be a wise decision when he kicks the door open with his heel, splintering the substantial beam barring it shut in half.

“DO YOU KNOW WHO YOU MOTHERFUCKING BULGE BLOCKED?” Blood from the Grand Highblood’s club drips between the invader and the agent of his most assured death. The intruder doesn’t flinch. His rifle is tight against his shoulder and aimed directly at the adult troll. 

“Wwhere is she? Tell me wwhere the heiress is.” The demanding little shit looks familiar. Face fins, lightning bolts for horns, and the same purple waves emblazoned on his shirt. The young troll currently threatening Makara is most likely related to the skeevy bastard that recently vacated your bubble to get his on groove on with the bee obsessed cattle prod. 

“You trespass on MY DOMAIN. You threaten me in MY CASTLE. And you think that you have the RIGHT TO MAKE DEMANDS. You do not even possess the right to beg me not to use my CHUCKLEVOODOOS TO RIP APART YOUR THINK PAN until you’re howling and bleeding from every orifice. What deludes you into thinking that I won’t CULL YOU WHERE YOU STAND? Hope?” 

“Hope. No, I already destroyed that.”

Makara chuckles. “Redemption then, an EQUALLY FOOLISH CONCEPT.” 

“There is no redeeming wwhat I’vve done. I don’t care wwhat happens to me. I just need to knoww that she is safe.”

“If you want a question answered you have to PAY THE TOLL. Tell me a joke. If I laugh, I’ll answer your question. If I don’t, I’ll TURN YOU INTO A VIOLET STAIN just like I did to your ancestor.” 

“A joke? You wwant a joke?”

“And no MOTHERFUCKING FISH PUNS.”

He laughs dryly. She already banned me from saying them. He slings his rifle over his shoulder and chews on his lower lip. “Ok I got one. Wwhat’s the difference betwween a seadwweller and a flounder?” He pauses for a beat. “One is a loww life scum sucking bottom dwweller and the other is just a fish.” The air is tense before Makara breaks the silence.

“And the other is JUST A FISH.” His locust driven diesel engine laugh roars to life and sputters out in a series of equally disturbing honks. 

“What’s your question?”

“Wwhere is Feferi Peixes, the heiress? Seeing her run through my bubble is understandable but I kneww I had to followwer her wwhen I saww my ancestor trailing after her. I saww them enter this bubble.” 

“SHE’S SAFE with her matesprit.” The troll looks relieved yet confused. “Sollux.” His shoulders and fins wilt. 

“She’ll be happy wwith him,” he whispers. “Wwhat happened to the Orphaner?”

Makara snickers. “Psi is currently KEEPING HIM OCCUPIED.”

The young troll’s eyes widen. “The Psiionic? Sol’s ancestor?” Makara nods. “Black?”

“PITCH. Got a front row seat of Psi CLAWING UP the motherfucker’s gill slits.”

“Wwoww.” The troll’s face flushes a light purple.

“Sollux saw the WHOLE SHOW.” His cheeks darken to a deep violet and the young troll turns to leave.

“Before I go, if you don’t mind me prying, wwhat joke did Dualscar tell you before you culled him?”

“Your quadrants.” 

He winces and shakes his head. “I’d havve culled the pustule too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I bulge block like the best of them.


	23. A New Kind of Hate

A young troll stands in a desert staring at the rock in his hand. The rock is rust in color, slightly larger than his palm, rectangular, and has sharp edges. He gently tosses the rock in the air testing the weight. It splits into multiple shards in his hands as he catches the rock before it hits the ground. The troll frowns. He is going to have to find a different rock to bludgeon her with. 

“Taaaaaaaavros!” He sighs before turning to answer the shrieking voice originating behind him.

“What?”

“Have you found anything yet?”

“I found a rock.” 

“Great. A rock. Good job, that’s just what we need to save existence from ending, a rock.” He watches the shards break into smaller fragments as he lets them drop to the ground. The troll brushes the dust off his hands and glances up to the horizon. A small dark blip in the distance grabs his attention. He shields his eyes and squints. It looks Alternian, which makes sense given the desert. The blinding yet not flesh scorching sun however, does not. 

“Vriska I’m going to go check something out.”

“You go do that.” 

 

\---------

 

You don’t quite know how to describe what you’re looking at. It’s a thing of beauty and a horror that could drive a man insane. 

“Why are we painting a smuppet mural in your castle again?” 

“Because you won’t let me PAINT MIRACLES on the walls of your hive. The blank canvas is an AFFRONT TO THE MIRTHFUL MESSIAHS. It calls to be blessed by the BLOOD OF THE WICKED, drenched in the LIFE ESSENCE OF BLASPHEMERS, soaked in the VENOUS OFFERINGS OF HERETICS…” You have never met someone that loathes stucco as much as the clown. “…saturated in the VITAL FLUIDS OF HEATHENS…” The fucker is on a roll today. “… stained with the PLATLETS OF THE GODLESS…” Shit, this isn’t going to end anytime soon. The random wing nut you’ve been fated to pass the rest of existence with is preaching away like a Southern Baptist pastor in greasepaint at a summer revival. The droplets of paint flinging off of his coated hands as he gesticulates creates an interesting splatter effect on the drying mural. A stray blob of paint lands on your shades and you decide to cut his trip into the Messiah zone short today as you remove the offending glob with your thumb. 

“Makara you’re dripping infidel juice all over.” The troll shuts up and inspects the colorful carnage. For a reason unknown to even yourself you taste the yellow orange smear on your thumb. The flavor is unsettlingly familiar. “Why does this taste like orange Faygo?”

“How else would the high priests of the church flavor the SACRED WICKED ELIXIR?” And yet another entry is added to your ever growing list of questions that you shouldn’t have asked but you did anyways. A shiver runs up your spine and you have serious doubts its due to revulsion. If you can handle that Makara used to sleep in a pile of troll paste that he also fucked on occasion then you shouldn’t have a major lip twitching shit fest inducing problem with a wee bit of cannibalism. So if the jolt down your spine was not due to the revelation that all the troll foods with grub in the name were most likely not formulated with grubs in mind but instead made out of grubs, then by process of elimination you and chucklefuck have visitors. It’s been a few weeks since the flood of finned bastards so you’re about due for another fresh bag of dicks. You look at the clown and tilt your head ever so slightly in the direction of the door. He grabs his spiked club and swings it up against his shoulder in a fluid motion as he heads over to greet the guests. Makara is still covered in several colors of blood paint. You could remind him to rinse that shit off. But you don’t. You have your reputation as an enigmatic prick to maintain. 

On second thought maybe you should have told chuckles to at least wipe the chunks off before answering the door. This is the first time that you’ve seen someone who was too afraid to even shit themselves. That undead asshole is clenched tight enough to mass produce diamonds. The young troll is stock still, his right arm frozen in place reaching for the door, his mouth slightly agape, and his white eyes as wide as can be. Makara for his part is also motionless. His expression is more surprised than deep in the throes of abject horror. His face lights up in a spark of recognition and he grins.

“NITRAM.” The troll jolts, his breathing shallow and rapid. Makara’s grin broadens revealing his vast array of fangs. If you look close enough you can almost swear that you can see the leftover remains of souls that he ate for breakfast lodged between his cracked and stained teeth. He scans the troll over with renewed interest inspecting him from his place in the doorway. “Do you have wings? CAN YOU FLY?” The troll squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head no. “nO fLyInG AwAy fOr yOu PuPa.”The little guy’s breathing hitches. For the love of fuck this is starting to turn into the beginnings of a bad B-rated torture porn flick. You need to shut this shit down right now. 

WHUMP.

Or that could happen. 

There is something embedded in the solid stone wall less than a foot away from the whimsical psycho’s head. It’s one of those jousting things. One of those stick that Medieval knights riding on horses would use to try to dehorse each other with. You aren’t quite sure dehorse is a word. It is now. Dehorse. You allow the concept of men in tin cans getting knocked off bloated pastel ponies by sticks wrapped in ribbons while your subconscious does the heavy lifting. A lance. That’s what it’s called, a lance. Who the fuck still uses a lance? You glance over to the idiot that almost got impaled. His grin has morphed from ‘uncle just wants to play’ to one of genuine happiness. Even the younger troll is awash in joy. What fuckery is this? You follow the approximate trajectory of the lance back to its source. The first thing that you notice is the goal post horns. The second thing that you notice is the wings. It’s a bird, it’s a plane, no it’s…

“Rufioh,” the young troll whispers the name like a precious dream. The unholy beast in front of you cackles like a demonic horde of cicadas and takes off on all fours towards the winged wonder. You’re left wondering how the hell Dante Basco learned how to fly and why the fuck he is in your dream bubble. Makara lunges at the airborne troll as it swoops down with another lance at the ready. The two trolls collide in midair and plummet to the ground in a knot of flailing limbs and horns. The snarl hits the rocky desert with a sickening meaty thwack and bounces like a cafeteria meatball. The hard reminder that gravity is still a force that exists doesn’t slow the brawling trolls. After a heated scuffle Makara pins the intruder’s arms and legs with his own. He slowly lowers his head to perform the coup de grace. Ripping an enemy’s throat out with his bare teeth is barbaric yet effective, a move perfectly suited for Attila. The young troll audibly gasps. His light grey skin flushes dark brown as his jaw drops. You get a feeling that you’re missing something. You glance back to Makara only to discover that his ‘dispatched enemy’ has his arms wrapped around your troll’s back and is attempting to dig trenches through the clown’s shirt with his claws.

Oh. Oh. Huh. Well then. Isn’t this … ironic. You get the sudden urge to make someone bleed and not in the way that they like. Said urges are in no way related to the tongue currently shoved down your troll’s throat, or the fact that Makara is reciprocating with reckless abandon, or grinding against him, or has his fingers tangled in the other’s luxurious red and black Mohawk. Nope. Not at all. This is not bothering you one iota. Your eye twitches as the unwelcomed troll’s latching onto Makara’s neck earns him a low rumbling groan. Fuck it. Your panties are in such a twist the force at which they’ll snap will create a sonic boom. Did the clown’s flagrant disregard of time, place, and occasion break the sound barrier? No, but your metaphorical lacy delicates spontaneously ceasing to hold your magnificent goods in place sure will. 

The two trolls put their blatant public display of violent affection on hold long enough to peel off of each other and stumble towards the castle. They are oblivious to you and the other troll’s existence as they wander into Makara’s hive. Someone needs to die. Again. Painfully. 

Judging from the thunderous clamor chased by bloodcurdling shrieks and what you surmise to be the snapping of bones someone just did. What you don’t expect to see strolling victoriously out of the castle doorway is the troll knock off of Rufio carrying Makara’s favorite skull. Makara has thousands of skulls stashed all over his castle. He squirrels them away like he is preparing for the some fabled skull shortage. His throne is made of skulls and bones, they are piled in the grand hall, they are heaped up in his private chambers, they even line the walls in the dungeons and catacombs. Despite the sheer abundance of skulls that the troll hoards he has a favorite. He stores it away in his sylladex for safe keeping, he cuddles with it at night, and you and Cal have caught him talking to it on multiple occasions. He talks to it like he’s having a conversation with it. Who talks to inanimate objects? That’s just weird. Either way, it is his favorite skull, his prized possession, and the intruder who just waltzed into your bubble and macked on your troll has that skull in his hands. 

“Sonofabitch.” It’s his skull. That’s why it’s Makara’s favorite, because it belonged to him. Chucklefuck stumbling out of the castle swearing as he yanks bone shards out of his back conveniently distracts you from utterly losing your shit over his lingering affections for his dead fuck buddy.

“SUMMONER.” Makara growls at the troll and eyeballs the stolen goods. The troll smirks and palms the cranium in his left hand.

“Highblood why do you want this when you have the real thing?” he purrs. And of course the suave bastard seizes this perfect opportunity to get Makara’s bulge in a twist by slowly licking off the drying blood caked on the back of his right forearm with his obscenely long tongue without breaking eye contact with your troll. The summoner smirks and stashes his skull away in his sylladex. His triumphant saunter off into the sunset is abruptly halted when he catches you out of the corner of his eye. He looks down at you like you’re a disgusting bug that he decides not to step on because he doesn’t want your guts smeared all over the bottom of his shoe. You resist flinching as an intrusive pressure worms its way into your mind. The alien bastard is rummaging through your brain like a dollar store bargain bin. The pressure dissipates and the troll seems mildly amused.

“Jealous over the wrong quadrant,” he scoffs. His smug expression evaporates the instant he sees the young troll on beside you. The adult troll takes a hesitant step towards the younger one and stops. The two fidget in silence as they scope out the other. The summoner breaks the shy stalemate and ambles up to the kid. He crouches down to his eye level and gives him a gentle tap on his forehead with his own. “Rufioh Nitram.” The younger troll beams and returns the head butt.

“Tavros Nitram.” Rufioh grins and ruffles Tavros’ fluffy Mohawk. He scoops up Tavros in a bear hug before giving the kid a chance to breathe. Rufioh plops down on the ground and Tavros sits across from him, both ignoring the fact that you and Makara have witnessed the entire meeting. Makara seems interested enough to keep his mouth shut and you’re not the type to go randomly fuck up some alien kid’s day no matter how much of an ass the parent he just met happens to be. Rufioh warily glances over at chucklefuck before returning his attention back to his kid. 

“Why are you here Tavros?” 

“I’m on an adventure!”

“An adventure?”

“Yes. Me and a few other trolls are searching for a legendary item to defeat Lord English.”

“That’s a heavy task pupa. Can I tag along?” Tavros lights up.

“You… you want to join us?” Rufioh nods. “Of course you can come!”

“Bangarang! Before we go I just have one more thing to do ok?” Tavros nods. Rufioh stands up and walks over to Makara. He stops and cracks his knuckles. “This is for scaring my precious little pupa earlier.”

“What motherfucker?” Rufioh sends the confused troll crashing through the castle doors with an impressive right hook. K.O. Flawless Victory. Rufioh, now satisfied strolls over Tavros and helps him up.

“You knocked out the Grand Highblood,” he says awed.

“Yes I did.” 

“Bangarang.” They fly off together into the sunset. Good for them. Now it’s just you, your sword, and chucklefuckle. You stand over the unconscious troll and sharpen your blade while you wait for him to wake up. Let’s see his Mirthful Messiahs save him from this.


	24. Something to Prove

The hot mess lying on the stone slab floor blinks owlishly as he reenters the realm of the conscious. The troll’s disheveled appearance is earning him no favors. His black and white greasepaint is smeared. His drying purple blood highlights the multiple cuts on his lips, the bite wounds on his neck and shoulders, and the numerous claw marks crisscrossing his skin. He props himself upright with his left arm and attempts to wrangle the natural disaster that is his hair with his right to no success. 

“Get up.” Makara follows the length of the sword from the tip hovering mere inches from his bare throat up to the hilt held firmly in your grasp. Your lack of expression reveals little, however the tone of your voice informs him of all that he needs to know. You are serious. Another hint that this is far from a joking matter is the fact that you are scaled to his size. You are on equal if not better terms than him. “Now.” He complies with your demand. Neither you nor your katana leave his sight as he slowly stands. The Prince of Rage must surely feel your own, however, he isn’t alarmed. He seems more of an equal mix of cautious and curious. It must have been decades if not centuries since he last felt true apprehension. He might be following your commands just to see what you do and not because of the implied threat of violence if he does not. 

You tilt your head in the direction of the Great Hall, the epicenter of the castle. The troll turns and sets a languid pace as he leads the way to his throne room. Makara keeps a buffer of five paces between you and him as he winds through the corridors. That distance is not enough to narrow the gap between his reflexes and your own. However, it might allow him the fraction of a second that he needs to strike you down with his chucklevoodoos before you can inflict serious bodily injury. He stops in the center of the Great Hall and waits. You nod towards his private chambers. He lifts an eyebrow. Your lack of a response answers his question. He shrugs and continues to his room. Makara allows the buffer between you and him to decrease from five paces to just two inside his chambers. The troll’s stance is relaxed. He’s confident in hand to hand fighting and close quarter combat. He’s also aware that you’re best at mid-range fights. Your katana was not designed for confined spaces. He knows that you know this, and from that he deduced that you’re not here for a fight. He believes that you’re experienced enough to not willingly handicap yourself. He’s correct in his assumption. You’re not here to fight; you brought him here for a much different purpose.

“Get on the bed.” He sits down on the edge and waits. He complies with the short flick of the katana and scoots further onto the platform. You crawl onto the bed and straddle Makara’s thighs. The troll glances at the sword and then back to you. A katana is not an optimal weapon to threaten someone with when you’re sitting in their lap. You and Makara stare at each other in silence. You’re the first to admit that this isn’t well thought out because this wasn’t thought out at all. You’re current emotional state has greatly impaired your ability to reason clearly. Fucking emotions. You have something to prove but you don’t know what. All you know is that this wouldn’t be happening if Makara didn’t shove his tongue down that bastard’s throat.

“Lay down.” Makara grabs ahold of your katana, the side of the blade pressed up against his palm. He’s reached the level of shit he’s willing to take from you.   
“I don’t want you like this.” His words are firm, resolute. The sword is shaking despite his unyielding grip on the blade. He yanks it out of your hand and throws it off the side of the bed. Your calm façade starts to crumble with the metallic clang of your last defense hitting the stone floor. The breathing exercises aren’t working. Nothing is working. You flinch when his hand brushes against your cheek and as much as you lie to yourself it’s not due to the temperature difference. “Bro, I don’t hate you.” He sets your hat down on the bed and your breathing hitches as he carefully removes your shades. He is still looking at you when you screw up the courage to open your eyes. You couldn’t feel more vulnerable if you were a rabbit tied up and thrown to the wolves to let them feast on your exposed tender underbelly. 

_Come and get it, rip me apart._

The predator before you begins to purr. The sound is a deep gravelly rumble. Aradia told you during one of your many educate the ignorant human sessions that primitive trolls had developed the ability to purr to communicate their nonviolent intentions to others which was a great leap for all troll kind that lead to the solitary creatures living in groups and eventually forming civilizations. Purring is instinctual. Its message reaches you at a primal level.

_I will not hurt you._

Makara wraps his arms around you drawing you near and you collapse. You drape your arms over his shoulders and bury your head in the crook of his neck. You listen to the steady beating of his heart. The frantic pace of your slows until it stops threatening to beat out of your chest but you don’t let go. He continues to hold you like this as you drift off. You fall asleep for the first time in the arms of someone that you didn’t just finish having sex with and it is glorious. 

A gentle shake rouses you awake.

“BRO.”

“Mhurrm?”

“Bro, you’re MOTHERFUCKING TINY.” You jerk upright and glance between yourself and Makara  
.  
“Well shit.” You’re human sized. This didn’t happen last time you fell asleep while scaled to match the troll.

“I think our bubble is MERGING WITH ANOTHER. Take what you need. I’ll fix my paint and then we can SAY HI.” You shoo him with a wave of your hand.

“Go fix your face; you don’t want to look like a sloppy blasphemer when we meet our new neighbors.” He grins and plods off to another room. You struggle out of the bed and try to imagine different clothing. Bubble magic is currently offline they’ll just have to deal with what you’re wearing. You hastily smooth out the wrinkles in your shirt and search for your hat and shades. It only takes you and Makara a few minutes to finish getting ready before you two head down the corridor to inspect the new bubble. He pushes the substantial carved doors of the main entrance open and the castle dissolves around you replaced by a rust rock strewn desert similar to the one of your bubble. Looks like you’re not in Kansas anymore. You pull yourself away from watching the transition going on behind you and turn to face your bubble mate. Makara is rigid, staring straight ahead. His teeth are clenched, his expression pained.

“Signless.”


	25. The Vast Expletive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It will get worse before it gets better.

“Heed my words you fucking ungrateful pieces of shit for this spiteful eloquence will comprise the last sermon to pass through these wretched lips. You crotchstained barfpuppets have eviscerated all hope that I once had for redeeming this disgusting failure of a civilization. I once believed that by uniting the disparate blood castes under one cause that we could surmount the putrescence that contaminates the moral fiber of our society and hinders our progression towards the utopia that I have borne witness to. But I was fucking wrong. To transcend the infinite vastness of the layers of shit that we have allowed to be heaped upon our backs by our socially constructed superiors requires effort. It requires action. Salvation from your mortal damnation requires fucking sacrifice. I have scraped off chunks of flesh from my sickles more ready and willing to stand up for their beliefs than any of you putrid lumpsquirts of garbage. If you are unwilling to fight for change then you do not fucking deserve it motherfuckers.” 

The crowd gathered for his execution is silent save for a few hushed murmurs. Their eyes are averted, whether from shame or revulsion due to the bright crimson dribbling down his scarred skin in rivulets he does not care. They are here to watch him die and so they shall. The weary troll closes his heavy eyelids for the final time. The stench from the iron bonds searing his flesh lays thick in the air. The pain long since dissipated when his nerves were burnt through. His thoughts are his lone companion. Countless sweeps ago when this memory would arise he would contemplate the events that led to his demise. He would relentlessly examine his every action to determine the source of his failure. Time and time again he found himself wanting. His flaws were without end and his successes were few. His revolt was doomed from its inception. His dream of Alternia becoming the paradise of Beforus of his memories would always be just that, a dream. The struggle of his and his companions were all for naught. But that was the troll that existed in his past. The current Signless is waiting. He waits for the arrow that will draw close the curtains of this memory and herald in the beginning of another. He wishes that the next memory he is forced to relive is a pleasant one, but there are so few from his short violent life. The tension leaves his battered body as he begins the countdown. The arrow will hit in

Ten

Nine

Eight

Seven

Six

“Coward.” His eyes snap open and he lifts his head to view the source of the bellow. “You have no idea what his death will do to you.” 

For the first time in a thousand sweeps the troll hopes.

“It can’t be.”


	26. The Execution

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for some graphic depictions of violence.

“Jesus Christ.”

A swarm of thousands is amassed around a ring of stone pillars encircling an unsettlingly familiar cluster of spiraling towers in the valley below. The focal point of the horde is a platform erected around two pillars flanking the entrance of the castle. You are unable to distinguish the figures on the platform at this distance but the purpose of the gathering is clear. This is a memory of an execution.

“Strider, I know that you’re not one of the Mirthful Messiahs, and I know that I don’t motherfucking deserve a miracle, but I’m going to ask you for one.” His voice is hoarse and there is a faint trace of purple welling up in his eyes. It must be the dust whipped up by the winds. “At the peak of this mountain you will find a stronghold flying dark blue colors emblazoned with black arrow. In the turret on the northeast tower you will find a troll suited in black armor. He is The Executioner. You will not be able to defeat him in combat. However you might be able to stop him before he fulfills his orders.” Makara searches through his sylladex and hands you a bicycle horn marked with a purple Capricorn signal. “Give him the horn, it is an item held sacred by the followers of the Mirthful Messiahs. Tell him that the Grand Highblood commands him to stand down and to wait for further instruction. Strider if it’s you, you might be able to give me the only miracle that wished that I’d had prayed for.” The troll that bows to no one is pleading for your help. If he wants a miracle you’ll do what has to be done to get it for him. You store the horn in your sylladex and adjust your shades.

“Go crack some skulls.” You flash step up a mountain side that could be best described as sheer, good thing your spirit animal is the result of an illicit barnyard affair between a pony and a goat. The hulking structure is carved out of the summit scraping at the far edge of the bubble. You ascend the spiraling sets of staircases in haste to the uppermost turret overlooking the Grand Highblood’s castle. A sea of indigo greets you as you reach the top stair. Someone already beat you to the punch, or should you say shot. The armored behemoth is collapsed on the slab floor, an arrow with a black shaft and blue feathers pierced his helmet going straight into his brain. “I am not sticking around to find out what can take this fucker out,” you mutter and set off back to the site of the execution. You return just in time to watch Makara pick a fight.

“COWARD.” Shit. Shit shit shit. You worm your way through the tightly packed crowd of trolls and over to your raging idiot. “YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT HIS DEATH WILL DO TO YOU.” The trolls withdraw from Makara like he’s a radioactive leper, you being the reasonably intelligent bastard that you are jump into the clearing. The haggard troll chained to the pillar to the right of the castle entrance raises his head, his blank eyes searching for the source of the disturbance. His eyes are white. He’s real. He’s the owner of this nightmare and he’s reliving his own death. The gathered trolls around you are all bubble constructs, non-player characters, vague apparitions of his memory. The crowd’s features are ill defined, blurry as if they are out of focus. Their clothing is dirty generic medieval alien peasant. The chained troll’s eyes widen when he finds Makara who is locked onto the troll lurking beside the bubble’s denizen on the scaffolding.

“You’ve got to be shitting me.” Makara wasn’t calling the troll about to meet his maker in his own memory bubble a coward. He was calling his younger self a coward. Or to be precise a memory construct of his younger self. The creature on the platform is twelve feet of death incarnate. The tips of his horns have been honed to points, his claws sharped, his hair roped into dreadlocks littered with shards of stained bone, his sclera are solid red, and his pupils black slits. The creature snarls as it glares at its original. The alternate Grand Highblood is not fucking amused. Yours calmly waits. A female seadweller with epic hair in a fuchsia striped black body suit saunters over to the growling Grand Highblood and whispers into his ear. He grins as if he just got the go ahead to feast on your souls. Your lip didn’t twitch honest, now is not the opportune time for you to lose your shit. The creature equips a spiked club, white still visible underneath a rainbow of blood splatter and walks down the stairs to the masses. The crowd hastily parts. “So it’s originally white.” 

“There is no need to panic Strider. A troll who has CULLED HUNDREDS stands no chance against one who has CULLED HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS.”

“Do I look worried?”

“You’re voice BETRAYS YOU.”

You huff. “Your alternate self is taking his sweet fucking time getting here.” You pause and glance over to Makara. His focus on the troll coming to kill him does not waver. “So…”

“It’s constructed out of the PULVERIZED BONE of the former Grand Highblood who I defeated in combat. That is why my club was originally white.”

“That’s fucking metal.”

“No its MOTHERFUCKING CALCIUM.” 

“Aren’t you going to use it? Your club?”

Makara snorts. “I already have a millennium worth of experience on my invertebrother I don’t MOTHERFUCKING NEED TO.” The opposing troll bursts into a run charging his original. Makara side steps as the other troll swings his club in vain hitting nothing but air. Your troll steps forward and palms his alternate’s head. He sinks his claws deep into the other’s skull as he uses his momentum against him forcing him to fall backwards. Makara bends his knees sinking to the ground as he throws his opponent to the rocky desert floor and cracks open his skull in one fluid movement. The motion is smooth, continuous, effortless. You wonder how many of those suicidal enough to challenge him have met a similar fate. 

The seadweller with the killer weave sneers as she watches the purple drip from Makara’s right hand and onto the freshly minted corpse. She takes out her gaudy gold hoop earrings and hands them to an awaiting minion before equipping a double sided golden trident. If you were a betting man you would wager the change in your pocket that she is a copy of the infamous sea hag, The Condescension. The Empress oozes her namesake as she meets Makara in the center of the clearing.

“Time for your fin-ale buoy.” She lunges with her trident. Makara grabs the shaft with his right hand and jabs her stomach with the straightened fingers of his left. She jolts as his hand sinks wrist deep into her torso. How many fistfuls of organs are in a seadweller? Apparently one and a good tug. Her entrails slop onto the ground before her gutted carcass hits it. Makara snaps the trident in half and drops it in the growing pool. He stares at the corpse momentarily before moving at a glacier’s pace to face the bulk of the crowd trailing blood in his wake. The masses are hushed as The Grand Highblood surveys the constructs deciding their fate. He smirks confident with his odds. One against thousands, that’s just not fair for them, poor bastards. Makara crouches down bracing for the impact of a rushing mob and fucking roars. The hairs on the back of your arms and neck stand up, you swear you feel the air reverberating but that could just be you. A metaphorical tear comes to your eye. That is the best ‘come at me bro’ that you have ever witnessed or ever shall. The trolls gathered to watch the execution cannot flee fast enough. The R.M.S. Chance of Surviving is sinking like the younger sibling of the Titanic that’s got something to prove and they need to get the fuck out of Dodge yesterday. You pay Makara the highest compliment that any Strider can bestow, you remind yourself to never piss him off.

The constructs dissolve as they abscond. The supporting characters on the platform follow suit after the last bystander blows away like dust in the wind. The first to disappear is a seadweller decked out in violet finery of royalty. He does not have his trademark scars yet but the rifle slung across his back is a legendary piece of weaponry that you aren’t one to forget. The erosion trails down his ring drenched fingers and consumes the chains of the two captives kneeling on the platform at his feet before consuming them as well. His charges are bruised and beaten covered only in thin rags. The emaciated troll that reminds you too much of Captor has his eyes closed, his head bowed. The second captive is unfamiliar but her expression is not. Her pale white features are wracked with pain and worry as she watches the troll soon to meet his fate. She is a mother about to see her son die. The last to disappear is defiant to the end, struggling against the chains binding her to the second pillar while snarling and hissing at where the seadweller had vanished with her compatriots. 

The wind howls across the desolate landscape as the two remaining trolls make eye contact. His longing speaks volumes of which he has never allowed you to read. The memory holder swallows thickly and nods his head. A figure steps out from besides the scaffolding as Makara begins to climb the stairs. She cautiously circles around to the front placing herself between you and the platform. Her panic stricken white eyes flicker between you and Makara as her pale fingers tighten their grip on her scythe. She isn’t a construct like all the others. She’s real and so is her concern as The Grand Highblood, the monster that once stood by as her son was executed all those years ago approaches him. Her anxiety grows as the meat hooks that have ripped untold numbers apart reach up to the shackles burning into her son’s wrists. You hear the hiss of the blood boiling off of his skin as he wraps his fingers around the red hot metal and forces the bonds apart. Makara gingerly removes the broken shackles as he cradles the wounded troll in his arms.

The female troll and you watch spellbound as The Grand Highblood carries the injured troll off of the platform and carefully nestles him in his lap to protect him from the biting winds. Makara rumbling purr sputters to life as he shooshes the troll and cards his clawed fingers through his short wavy mess of hair. He pulls out several tins and a small pile of bandages from his sylladex, eases his patient into a sitting position, and begins to tend to his injuries. The female troll kneels down beside Makara and situates herself to block the incoming wind and sand. The small group is quiet save for Makara’s deep gravelly purr and an occasional shoosh to chase away the pain as he cleans and dabs on medicated salves before bandaging the extensive burns on the smaller troll’s wrists and welts crisscrossing his back. Once finished he returns his supplies and fishes out a small folded brown bundle. He unfurls the brown cloth and helps the injured troll put on the cloak. The bundled troll closely examines the red embroidery edging the fabric as he rests in Makara’s lap.

“This is the cloak that my mother made for me,” he murmurs and then looks up to Makara. “How long have you been holding onto this?”

“A thousand sweeps.” He pauses and glances down at the worn cloth. “I’ve always had this in my possession ever since your death.” The silence is palpable as the small troll processes that information.

“A few hours before my execution, when you asked me if I could abandon my fate as a martyr and run away with you, you meant it didn’t you?” Makara nods in response. 

“Shit. How the fuck can he still be walking around?” You equip your katana and the female troll readies her scythe as the massive armored troll lumbers over to your group. He just appeared. No one can just appear, let alone an armor covered mountain with horns. The female troll is completely ignoring your unspoken signals to flank the giant. She visibly relaxes as a troll with curly hair trailing down to her waist sprints around the behemoth and bounds over to her. 

“Rosa!” The troll wrapped around her in a rib crushing bear hug looks like the one you saw snarling and chained to a pillar less than an hour ago. 

“It’s good to see you once again Disciple.” Rosa smiles warmly as she strokes strands of the other’s mane back into place. The armored troll seems to be as teeming with excitement at this joyous occasion as you are. The blissful reunion is cut disastrously short as the Disciple locks onto Makara.

“Subjugglator,” she hisses and draws out two sets of metal claws. Her companion rests one of his hands on her shoulder utterly dwarfing her frame.

“Meulin settle thy horns.”

“No,” she growls.

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Meulin I must insist that you maintain your composure. I will not allow the highblood to harm the Signless in my presence.”

“Darkleer, I must commend you on your MOTHERFUCKIGN DILIGENCE in carrying out the final tasks I assigned to you.” The troll has a visible ‘oh shit’ moment and straightens his posture.

“Grand Highblood,” Darkleer bows nearly folding in half. The Disciple’s eyes widen in alarm and she promptly loses her shit.

“He is the Grand Highblood?” she snarls. Darkleer returns his hand to her shoulder to restrain her from attacking.

“Meulin Leijon, The Grand Highblood would not have taken great pains to have The Signless’s message recorded and spread across the empire if he truly wished him ill.” Makara rolls his lips inside his mouth and mashes what’s left together as the troll half his height and a fraction of his weight glares up at him from his lap. 

“What in the taintchafing fuck is he talking about?”


	27. If You Want Them to Suffer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aka A Walk Down Memory Lane Part One
> 
> Aka Darkleer gets his own damn chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finals are done woot!

“Signless ...” The baby carrot horned troll scrutinizes the painted behemoth as Makara contemplates how best to convey the thoughts kicking around his think pan. Seconds string together and stretch out into an uncomfortable silence as he wrestles with his own inability to harness the storm raging in his mind into something worth saying. He looks up to the sky searching for an answer and comes back relieved yet conflicted. “Our bubbles merged” he mentions off hand. He shuts his eyes and exhales his pronounced slouch forcing out air as it draws him closer to the troll seated in his lap. “My red blooded miraculous brother I dared not even hoped ask the Mirthful Messiahs for the opportunity to be reunited with you once again in all the centuries I have worshiped them.” Makara looks down to the troll fixated on him. “And yet here we motherfucking are.” A faint glimmer of a grin vanishes as soon as it appears. “I cannot begin to tell you, but I can show you.” 

The ring of pillars dissolves like melting candles liquefying the scaffolding and surrounding stretch of wasteland. The pool of what memories are made of levels out before trickling upwards forming walls converging to a multi-angled ceiling. Shapeless masses inside the chamber gain definition as the architecture of the structure becomes fixed. Blood splatter blooms in a rainbow of shades on the walls and floor as the creature at the back at the room snarls. The throne room of The Grand Highblood’s castle has changed little in the course of a millennium. The younger version of Makara is growling a litany of curses while he paces back and forth in front of his throne twisting a cut off horn of one of his many victims in his hands. The mutilated headgear cracks under pressure and he chucks the broken shards to the floor unsettlingly close to where a troll is waiting on bended knee. 

“HE IS MY KISMESIS,” the creature roars as the latest target of his rage ricochets off the stone slab floor and joins the growing pile. “Since he is the LEADER AND SOLE INSTIGATOR of the failed revolt he is allowed the PRIVILEGE to be ROASTED ALIVE” he stops pacing and sweeps out his arms, “outside of my castle. The mutant should be thankful,” he spits and resumes pacing. “HE IS MINE. And she knows this. If he must die I WILL BE THE ONE to determine the manner in which he reaches the Messiahs. I will not leave him to BURN DOWN TO FLESH AND BONE. My kismesis will die the death he has earned. Executioner I will be counting on your expertise to ensure that HIS DEATH IS SWIFT.” The kneeling troll lifts his head. 

“What of the other members of his enclave Grand Highblood?” 

“The Empress,” he hisses her name like a foul and highly contagious STD,” has laid claim to the pissblood to power her flag ship. She has also promised the jade blood to another fish to SERVE AS A DISTRACTION for the water breather’s advances.” The Executioner weighs his words carefully before speaking.

“What is to become of the olive sir?” 

“She is to SUFFER THE SAME FATE as her beloved leader. You are to execute the mutant, her fate MATTERS LITTLE to me. You are dismissed.” The Executioner stands, bows, and turns with well- practiced military precision. The grand hall dissolves behind him as he strides through the ornately carved doors flanked by subjugglators in formal dress and armed to the teeth. The decay matches his quickened pace through the darkened corridors lined with cackling purple blooded jackals. The jeering only worsens as the armored troll nears the main entrance to the castle. You are not familiar with the terms but the taunts are rife with context clues. Slur, slur, sexual innuendo, slur, the Executioner remains impassive through it all right until one of the sneering clowns mentions something about a sludge blood rotting away in the prison catacombs. You’ve never seen a troll beaten to death with his own lower jaw before. The corridor goes silent save for a few gurgling screams that are soon drowned out by the crunching of bone on bone. Once satisfied the Executioner drops what remains of the mandible, wipes off his gauntlets and greaves with a dark blue towel and lets it fall on top of the freshly minted corpse. The troll then straightens his armor and leaves the castle unhindered. 

Pillars sprout out of the rust wasteland as the Executioner exits the cluster of spiraling towers. The troll fades and is rapidly replaced by a horde of thousands surround a scaffolding erected beneath two pillars. The scene is all too familiar to the trolls gathered to watch Makara’s memory. The Disciple and Dolorosa stiffen. The Signless leans forward peering at his broken and bleeding form chained up and cursing the crowd with all of the vehemence he can muster. 

“Heed my words you fucking ungrateful pieces of shit for this spiteful eloquence will comprise the last sermon to pass through these wretched lips. You crotchstained barfpuppets have eviscerated all hope that I once had for redeeming this disgusting failure of a civilization. I once believed that by uniting the disparate blood castes under one cause that we could surmount the putrescence that contaminates the moral fiber of our society and hinders our progression towards the utopia that I have borne witness to. But I was fucking wrong. To transcend the infinite vastness of the layers of shit that we have allowed to be heaped upon our backs by our socially constructed superiors requires effort. It requires action. Salvation from your mortal damnation requires fucking sacrifice. I have scraped off chunks of flesh from my sickles more ready and willing to stand up for their beliefs than any of you putrid lumpsquirts of garbage. If you are unwilling to fight for change then you do not fucking deserve it motherfuckers.” 

The chained troll’s rage is ended by arrow driven deep into his lower abdomen. The Condescension’s fins flare as she shoots the Grand Highblood a scathing glare before returning to face the populace as if the execution was all going according to her plan. The Disciple’s wails heralds the shift in the memory’s focus away from the platform and to the upper turret in the stronghold perched atop the adjacent mountain. The Executioner notches his second arrow and draws his bow. He holds his position for a few mere seconds that feel like lifetimes before lowering his weapon. The troll spits out what looks to be broken pieces of teeth and blood. He raises his bow a second time and does not hesitate to fire. The arrow whistles across the rocky desert and knocks loose the lynchpin securing the Disciple’s chains. Her feet land on the platform and for a moment time stops as she locks eyes with the Grand Highblood.

“Run child.” Dolorosa’s plea snaps her out of her haze and she darts over to the Signless and strips him of his leggings before launching herself off of the scaffolding.

“Cull her,” the Condescension hisses.

“My chuckle voodoos would cull her and YOUR PRECIOUS FUCKING BATTERY.”

“Juggalo.”

“It’s all part of the plan Empress,” he replies dismissively as he jumps off of the scaffolding and lumbers back to his castle. The Disciple rounds a corner of the sprawling compound and is snatched up behind the structure. A hand whips up to covers her mouth as an arm wraps around her waist lifting her several feet off of the ground. Two subjugglators creep out of the shadows and grab her flailing arms. A third watches as the two unshackle her hand cuffs and let the heavy chains fall along with the leggings. The two subjugglators then withdrawal behind the third as he slithers up to her. He pulls out a pack and stuffs the fallen blood stained clothing into it before shoving the bag into her free arms.

“He wanted you to have this.” The Disciple warily looks at the pack before taking it. The troll restraining her relaxes his hold. She drops to the ground landing on the balls of her feet and shoulders the bag. “Run kitty. RUN,” the subjugglator cackles. The Disciple bolts and the four trolls recede back into the shadows. The stone walls of the castle begin to melt away until the throne room is revealed once again. The hall is lined with rows of trolls clothed in finery in shades of purples and blues. The Executioner is kneeling alone before the Grand Highblood seated on his throne of skulls and bones. 

“Executioner, you have been called before this court because you HAVE FAILED in completing the task assigned to you by her royal Condescension. You were unable to successfully carry out the EXECUTION OF BOTH the mutant rebel and his disciple which led to her escape. Given the SEVERITY OF YOUR CRIMES against both the Empress and the Empire I have decided to see to your punishment PERSONALLY.” The troll’s head remains lowered as the Grand Highblood rises from his throne and strides up to him. “Give me your bow.” All eyes of the court are riveted on the two trolls. The Executioner presents his bow above his head cradling it with both hands. The Grand Highblood takes the bow and it cracks in half like a spine in his grasp. The room is silent as the monster holds the halves apart drawing the bowstring taut. Agonizing seconds pass before the Grand Highblood drops the broken bow before the Executioner.

“What point is there to kill someone who DEATH HOLDS NO MEANING FOR?” The highblood pauses. “Executioner. There is nothing in this world more painful than being intimately aware of the full extent for what one has lost. If you want them to suffer, you let them LIVE.” A few hushed gasps escape from those gathered. “Killing you would not serve as an adequate punishment. Executioner your sentence is BANSIHMENT. I, the Grand Highblood exile you from the Empire to the far reaches of Alternia. I will TAKE AWAY EVERYTHING that has ever mattered to you. You are stripped of your title, your rank, your position, your possessions, and your lands. YOUR SHAME will be recorded to be witnessed by your descendants in the centuries to follow. All I have left for you is one question. Was she worth it?” The kneeling troll looks up to the one addressing him. 

“Yes.” 

“May that sentiment give you comfort in the centuries of isolation because no one else will.” The court erupts in chaos the instant the Grand Highblood falls silent. The memory fast forwards over the throng of troll elite calling for the Executioner’s blood and the response of the subjugglators to a slight against their leader’s judgment. Once the doors close and only the Grand Highblood and former Executioner remain in the great hall does time regain its natural pace. 

“I have taken so much from you, but I will give you a miracle that you never knew you wanted.”

“Save your miracles for a troll that believes in them, sir,” his voice is bitter.

“She lives.” The troll snaps his head up. “She was last seen heading into the caverns of the petrified forests. And Darkleer, the true miracle that I give to you is that no one cares what an exile does. There is nothing left separating you from her.”

“You knew?” he asks hesitant.

“From the moment you saw her. My plans hinge on you not being able to harm her. Darkleer I have one final order for you, but I know that you would do it without me commanding you to. Protect her. Keep her safe. If she dies, than all that my kismesis believed in and fought for is lost.” The troll stands and places his closed left fist over his right chest plate. 

“I will protect her with all that I am.”

“May the Messiahs watch over you and bless you in your endeavors Expatriate.”

“May the Holy Mother shower you with her mercies Grand Highblood.” The Expatriate bows and leaves.

“No one can save me now,” he whispers in the vast empty room.


	28. You Let Them Live

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> aka A Walk Down Memory Lane Part Two
> 
> aka GH gets his own damn chapter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love you readers, I love you dearly but I'm sorry this must be done. Grab some tissues.
> 
> Chapter warning: Past character suicide attempt, torture (not graphic)

You didn’t want to hear him say that phrase. You want the memory to rewind. You want the Expatriate to leave and for the curtains to draw close. That’s all folks, shows over. Move along there’s nothing to see here. You want the night that a man was executed; a girl became a wanted criminal, and another man was exiled to end on a high note even if it is ever so small. But life just doesn’t work like that, not for a human and not for a troll. The world just keeps on spinning grinding you down with it. For as long as you can remember you’ve had this ability to see deep down through all the layers in the darkest recesses into a person’s very soul, to see what lies in their heart. Makara is ground thin enough you can see the worn out holes that lead to an abyss of unending rage. The Grand Highblood of his memory is just starting to wear down. He’s breaking. You don’t want to see what happens next, but you need to.

The Grand Highblood lingers in his throne room long after the Expatriate has left. His painted maw is curled in a cruel fanged Cheshire grin but there is no joy, sadistic or otherwise, in his eyes. The clown isn’t laughing. It reminds you of a joke you picked up along the way. A man walks into a shrink’s office. He tells the doctor that he’s depressed, that life seems harsh and cruel. He says that he feels alone and that his future is vague and uncertain. The doctor tells him that the treatment is simple. ‘The great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him that should pick you up.’ The man bursts into tears. He says ‘But doctor… I am Pagliacci.’ 

The troll glances briefly back to his throne before lurching forward and trudging out of the ornately carved doors of the grand hall. The vacant corridors are eerily quiet, a network of empty catacombs waiting to be filled. The Grand Highblood takes no notice of the tomb and carries on through the dimly lit hallways. A faint sliver of light greets him from the horizon as he exits the castle. His fortress dissolves in his wake as he travels down the well-trod path to the reemerging bank of pillars. He circles around the forming platform and halts in front of the Signless’s still chained corpse. The bright red rivulets dripping from his wounds have congealed to maroon. You wish you could say he looks peaceful, but martyrs don’t die easy deaths. It’s like a prerequisite. Die a horrible enough death you become a saint. Kill enough people you become a god. The Signless died and Makara slaughtered. 

The Grand Highblood breaks the hold of the unseen force rooting him in place at the base of the structure and begins to climb the stairs. His steps are slow and deliberate, awash in a queasy sense of finality. He comes to a stop before his former prisoner. With a hand you’ve seen crush skulls he smooths out the fragile troll’s features giving him the peace after death that he did not have in life. 

“Regret only exists for those who are too weak to accept the consequences of their decisions. I’m weak Kankri. I’m weak.” He pulls his hand away from the troll’s cheek and moves up to the shackles. “The second most powerful troll on Alternia is telling a corpse of a prisoner that he’s weak.” He dryly chuckles and pulls the iron bands apart with ease. “That’s the joke. Funny isn’t it?” He asks the body carefully cradled in his arms as he walks across the platform and down the stairs. He continues walking into the desert away from his castle and the pillars. “It’s not that good of a final joke but it’s the best that I’ve got.” The Grand Highblood sits down and arranges the Signless so that he is lying across his lap, his head resting in the crook of his arm. “I’ll make it up to you. I’ll just have to tell you a better joke when we meet again.” Light purple runs down his paint forming streaks in the black and white. “But I know we won’t.” His breathing hitches. The Grand Highblood slumps forward clutching his dead friend and weeps. No one can save him because the one who could has died. 

Time passes slowly as the dawn begins to break.

Dawn’s rosy fingertips are insidious, consuming the night, spreading across the rock strewn desert at an alarming rate. The Signless and Meulin’s whole bodies visibly tense up. Darkleer’s growing unease is less evident only showing in his clenching fists. Only the Dolorosa and Makara watch the scene unfold unaffected. Daylight is approaching and you’re left thinking about the time you spent with him on the beach.

_You could think of another memory._

_There are ones worse than this. Beforus. Or should I say the reason why the name Beforus is familiar._

The Signless turns back to look at Makara. “Kurloz.”

_A former prisoner of mine told me the tale. He said that Beforus was real, that it lived in his memory._

“Kurloz please. I’m not worth it. I’m not worth it,” the Signless pleads. He looks over his shoulder to the encroaching light. The sun is rising swiftly. 

_This story doesn’t end well._

The Signless’s white eyes are wide with fear. “Kurloz!” Makara closes his eyes and bows his head; there are streaks in his paint. 

_It does not end well for anyone._

“Oh god no,” you whisper. You watch him burn alive in the sun. 

The memory goes black. The ring of laughter chills you down to your core. It’s high and bubbly and cruel, twisted in its own sadistic pleasure.

_I survived the second stage before._

“Meenah, what did you do?” 

“Glub glub glub look what I got here caught in my tub. It’s the Grand Highblood the catch of the day! He burned all his skin off so he’s ready to flay.”Her sing song voice disappears. “What a fine little fillet you would make.” You hear the sound of her fanged jaws snapping shut followed by faint metallic clinking as the shark circles her prey. “It’s all part of the plan Empress. I doubt that this fucking was,” she cackles. “Yo don’t fuck with my bidness and get away with it motha fuck. I don’t practice no catch and release. My hook gets in you and you stay caught. I’d stick a fork in yo crispy ass but I’m far from done. What cray junk did you spout out yo blowhole?” She stops circling. “I remember. If you want them to suffer you let them live. And so you shell.” A flash of searing light is chased by a pained hiss. “Now I want to be shore buoy that you’re naut gonna pull this shit again. And I know somefin that can guaran- fucking-tee it. My momma and her fronds,” the bitch pauses for dramatic effect, “the horror terrors.” The hairs on the back of your arms and neck stand on end as you hear the whispered voices, faint at first but growing in strength. You’re being dragged into the depths of the ocean but there is no water. The increasing pressure weighs down your limbs and forces the air out of your lungs. The voices grow louder speaking a cursed language of strung consonants, grunts, and hisses. You’re only bearing witness to a memory and you’ve broken out into a cold sweat. This is the heart of darkness. This is what lurks beneath the holes. You hear sound of chains drawn taut and the groan of metal brought to its breaking point. And then you hear the screams. 

The memory ends as abruptly as it began. The gathered trolls are quiet. Meulin is clinging up against Darkleer. The Dolorosa is standing off by herself her hands clutched together. All three cannot take their eyes off the two other trolls. The Signless is kneeling in Makara’s lap his palm is cupping his face and he’s carding his fingers through the other’s hair. His voice is low and soothing. Shooshing all of Makara’s pain and torment away as he kisses his tears. Makara’s low rumbling purr kicks in as he wraps his arms around the smaller troll and draws him in. Makara loves him. He’s loved him for a thousand sweeps and he always will. The scene feels intimate and you’re just intruding. No one looks up to watch you leave.

The rocky desert scuffs your sneakers but you don’t give a shit. Your last fuck just flew away and took your heart with it. You finally figured out your feelings but it was too fucking late. He looks happy that’s what’s important. You look up and see a slice of bright clear blue sky. Your bubble isn’t separating from theirs, its separating from Makara’s.  
“Well that makes it easy.” You do what you always do and keep on striding.

“Bro.” Don’t stop walking. “Bro!” He doesn’t have to make this any harder than it already is. “God dammit Strider STOP AND LISTEN to me.” You don’t stop. “He’s my Cal.” You stop dead in your tracks and turn around. “I’m not sane without him. I love him and I just got him back. But I’m not waiting another thousand sweeps. I’m not making the same motherfucking mistake twice.” He pauses and squirms uncomfortable as hell as he stares at his feet. “Fuck it.” He looks back up to you. “I want to listen to your horrible rapping. I want to watch movies with you and add in our own dialogue. I want to sit on the floor and sew the most hideous plush abominations with you. I want to hear you complain about my preaching and my taste in elixir. I want to wake up next to you every night fall. Strider,” he takes a deep breath and exhales, “I want to be with you because I’m flushed for you.”  


You don’t say anything because you can’t. You stand there and watch him looking at you waiting for a reply. Don’t fuck this up. Don’t fuck this up. There are few things that you didn’t manage to screw up in your lifetime and you don’t want to add this to the list of things you did. You don’t say anything but you hold your hand out. Makara stares at it and shuffles a bit closer to you. 

“You can hold my hand.” He looks puzzled but hopeful. “Hand holding is a big step in human relationships,” you mutter. He grins and your hand disappears in his. You’ll kill any witnesses that say that they saw you smile back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clown joke from The Watchmen by Alan Moore  
> ~48,000 words and they finally figure out that they like each other... why do I do this to myself.


	29. This is Chapter 29

Neither of you speak on the walk back. You listen to the crunch of the gravel underneath your feet as you idly rub your thumb over the back of his fingers. Your shoulder complains at the angle but you can’t bring yourself to let go. You’ll just have to imagine up some tiger balm and ask him to massage your stiff muscles when you two return to the apartment. The feel of his calloused palm against yours is worth a little shoulder pain till then. He’s different from you but still so similar. His callouses are in other shapes and locations than your own, the result of wielding a club instead of a sword. His temperature is lower than yours by a good ten degrees leaving him cool to the touch but not cold. His grey skin has a slight purple cast to it from the blood running through his veins. It’s thicker than your own, more resilient, and yet every square inch of it is scarred. His skin is layered with them. The most recent tell of campaigns waged on foreign soil, of galactic conquest and subjugation. The numerous layers underneath speak of rebellions silenced on his home world, of coup d’état that never came to fruition, and assassination attempts where he laughed at the face of the grim reaper himself before he caved in his skull. The layer of scars closest to his heart he earned by meeting the sun for the one he loved. He was prepared to give everything away at the loss of his Cal, and you almost did for yours. 

You love him. You didn’t think that you were still capable of the feeling. Not after Cal. You love Dave, and you know you always will. You raised the lil man up from diapers, and as much as an aggravating shit he could be when he set his mind to it you didn’t hesitate when you saw the meteor. You would do anything for him even if it meant dying. And you proved it. But brotherly love is much different from romantic affection. Being able to see people for who they are and not the sanitized façade that they decide to display to others made you realize how foul the world is. The more you learned about how the world worked, the less you wanted to be part of it. Eventually you built your own façade and cut off your true self from everyone. 

Makara is the reverse of everyone that you’ve met; all his flaws are on the outside. At first glance you thought he was a Faygo swilling clown worshiping psychopath. At second glance you thought he was a Faygo swilling clown worshiping corpse fucking sociopathic war criminal. But deep down, after you pass China, he has a soft squishy nougat center. He’s a guy who just happens to be a Faygo swilling skittle popping clown worshiping former corpse fucker who would be a war criminal if he was human. But trolls have different standards on what’s considered as genocide and what’s considered normal for a Tuesday afternoon than humans. Holding an alien to human standards makes as much sense as plants being mad at sheep because they eat grass. You have strong doubts that other humans would be this accommodating but frankly you just don’t give a flying fuck. You’ve seen humanity and you are far from its biggest fan. You might go to the concert but you won’t shell out money earned on the sweaty backs of smuppets to buy the band merch. 

He relaxes his hand and lets you decide whether or not to withdrawal your own as you near the group of trolls. You are not one for public displays of affection but it would make him happy. You tighten your grip. You don’t need to look to know that he’s grinning. The Signless has his back to you and is animatedly chatting away with Dolorosa and the Disciple. Darkleer looms behind his cat girl content to observe and not participate except for an appropriate nod now and again. Nubs turns as you two approach. The smug little shit gives Makara an ‘I told you so’ look after he sees you two holding hands. Releasing Makara’s hand would let him know that you noticed him noticing. Not releasing his hand would only add to his smugness. The corner of his mouth quirks up ever so slightly higher as you decide on a suitable response. You choose to ignore his escalation as he breaks off from the cluster of trolls and wanders over. The clown is clueless to the entirety of the interaction. He’s a puppy with a heaping mound of tennis balls that just found a second sentient creature that has thumbs. You are no longer the only person willing to play fetch with him. You wistfully recall days gone by when your hands were drenched in metaphorical tennis ball drool, the green fuzz dripping with his affection. Did someone just glue on a cardboard paper towel tube to your spirit animal and called it a unicorn? Ok well Maplehoof would make a badass unicorn, but Strider you’re getting a little girly. And by girly, you are willing to ruthlessly end all those who stand in your way of perfect bliss with your boyfriend. All those they call friends, all of their relatives, everyone that they hold dear. You will end them. 

Wait a minute… did you just call Makara your boyfriend. 

You did. You don’t gasp out loud. Good job. Makara seems like he’s ready to do something. Oh yes, you still haven’t been properly introduced to his troll cuddle buddy. 

“Bro this is my miraculous moirailbro Kankri Vantas. Moirailbro this is my,” he pauses, he has to be blushing underneath all of that paint, “matesprit Bro Strider.” 

“Greetings,” he looks you over like you’re a rotting piece of meat, “Bro.” He smiles; almost every single one of his teeth is showing. You don’t think that it has the same connotation for trolls as it does for humans. You are a teenage girl. And you will cut this smiling nubby shit.

“Sup.” You smile. Your canines are sharper than his. Not bad for a pink meat sack. His eyebrow twitches. Excellent. He stops openly glaring at you and turns his attention to Makara. 

“Kurloz come here.” Makara takes a few steps closer to Sir Nubscelot. “Bend down.” The clown looks confused. “Your paint needs fixing.” Makara leans down. Vantas doesn’t have a chance in hell of reaching but he tries anyways. He stops standing on his tippy toes and glares at you. Oops he must have heard that snicker. Oh well. He turns back to Makara and huffs. “Just sit.” Makara complies and Nubbsey steps into his lap and assesses the paint situation. The clown’s diesel engine purr starts up as Vantas begins to smooth out his paint with his fingertips. He closes his eyes as the small fingers deftly cover the tracks in his face paint first starting with the white before his moirail wipes his hands and moves onto the black being careful not to smudge the lines delineating one color from another. The other trolls are enraptured by the pair. You don’t get it but the other three must find it worth watching since their eyes do not leave the two until Vantas finishes. His mother discreetly coughs and averts her eyes as he curls up in the purring troll’s lap. Darkleer has to physically turn the Disciple away as she furiously scribbles in a book while nibbling on her bottom lip. You feel compelled to go back to the apartment and get Cal. 

A loud pop interrupts your daydreams of bro time and rouses Makara and Vantas. The small troll’s jaw drops and his eyes widen in surprise as he sees who just entered his bubble. 

“Psiionic,” he shouts and sits up in Makara’s lap. His face falls faster than you can make panties hit the floor when he realizes that Captor is glancing between him and Makara. The clown and McNubberton look guilty as fuck. Captor does not look pleased, seems like the husband came home early and caught his wife and best friend doing the dirty deed. 

“Hello SL, GH.”

“Hey motherfucker,” Makara croaks. 

“GH what is the name of the planet that doesn’t exist anymore? You know the one that I destroyed for shits and giggles with my mind when I was a battleship?” Captor would be a great Bond villain if it wasn’t for his lisp. Makara gulps.

“Phobos.”

“Ah yes. Phobos.” Fuck it he would make an excellent villain even if his yes sounds like yeth. Makara and Vantas look like they would rather be on Phobos right now instead of sitting in front of him. “SL,” he waits until Vantas squirms, “scoot over.” Vantas glances down at Makara’s lap and back to Captor. “I said scoot over. Did I stutter?” Vantas shakes his head and scoots to the left. Captor walks over to the pair as fast as glaciers recede. The tension bubble bursts when he spins around and plops down in Makara’s lap buzzing like a malfunctioning weed whacker. “Just fucking with you.” He grins and wraps his stick arms around the stunned troll.

“What the ever blistering fuck you hornfondling nookslurper,” Vantas shrieks. “God dammit you sparking lisping fuckass I thought you were going to kill us!” The heaving troll starts to calm down as two sets of hands being to pap him. He’s quiet for a few blessed moments before he counts the number of hands. “Is this,” he looks at Captor and Makara, “ok?” 

“Two is always better than one,” Captor replies as he wraps his gangly limbs around Vantas and pulls him into his lap. Makara drapes his arm around the troll ball and absently runs his claws through Captor’s dandelion puff of hair. 

“Mituna you can be a real bulge sometimes.”

“I know.” 

Well that’s different; they look like troll nesting dolls. You swear you hear the troll equivalent of a squee. The Disciple has whipped out her book and is digging through a bag that looks like it’s made out of pelts. Dolorosa has a faint green blush and is covering her mouth with her hand. Darkleer is scandalized. The armored hulk of a troll is rapidly turning blue and sweating. His mouth is agape but only a strangled whine escapes. He swallows and sinks his teeth into his lower lip to no avail.

“That is so … depraved.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, that just happened. Pale threesome, its a beautiful thing.


	30. Who Wants Sushi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to thank you all for sticking along for the ride this far, 50,000 + words Woot! Also thank you for all of the kudos and wonderful comments.

The air feels electric. It crackles and pops like an overheating transformer. The approaching subsonic rumble makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. Captor hoists Vantas and shot-puts the smaller troll out of Makara’s lap before he scrambles out. Makara’s focus does not waver from a fixed point in the night sky as he stands and equips his two juggling clubs. You see pin pricks of light form among the stars. Constellations collide right before your eyes. The improbable creation is blinding scattering the trolls. Being a diurnal bulge humper has its perks, you’re standing firm with your katana drawn while the nocturnal bastards succumb to instinct and dive for cover. And people call you crazy for wearing shades at night. 

The Dolorosa strolls up alongside you. Her pale skin is radiant, glowing as if made from the same substance as the stars. You stare at her for a few moments longer than what is probably considered socially acceptable. She catches you. Your shades are not as an impenetrable barrier as you would like to think.

“Trolls do not ensure the survival of their entire species to the weak.” She takes out a small round tin hidden in the folds of her dress. The world made of memories of the dead is being forcibly ripped apart and instead of fighting it you watch her dab pigment on her lips with the tip of her finger.

“That’s not lipstick is it?” you ask as she replaces the lid and returns the container to its hiding place. She smiles serenely as she draws out her scythe. 

“It is the blood of my enemies.” Her smile broadens revealing her fangs. Not longer canines, no they are ‘I shit you not’ fangs. You remind yourself never to piss her off as she turns to face the forming fissure in the bubble. “I have my son once more. I will not allow anyone to take him away from me.” 

The air reverberates with a crackling hiss. The intruder enters the bubble like he’s marching on Poland. Horses? Peasants please, we have tanks. Ponies are no match for Panzers. 

“Psiionic,” the figure bellows. The light thankfully dissipates. It wreaks unholy havoc on your night vision. But you don’t need to see to be able to identify that voice. 

“And then there’s this asshole.” 

“I did not say that you could,” he stops dead in his tracks, his flared out fins fold, his voice plummets from a yell to a whisper, “leawve me.” He isn’t looking at you, he’s looking at her. His grip on his rifle fails him. It falls out of his hands and is left swinging freely from the strap slung over his shoulder. “Porrim.” The strap slides off as his shoulders slump. The rifle hits the rocks below with a clatter. The pained longing is as evident on his face as the hope on hers.

“Cronus?” She slowly lowers her scythe until the blade touches the ground. She lets the handle fall from her hands. “After all this time… it is you.” He flinches as she takes a step forward. 

“I’m sorry Porrim.” His white eyes well up with violet as she takes another step towards him. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He utters a litany of apologies as she continues walking. His breathing hitches as she places a hand on each cheek and tilts his head down diminishing the gap between them. Her gaze is unwavering, waiting for him to look her in the eyes. He rocks back shifting his weight to his heels. She steps in closer. Their eyes meet.

“Do not apologize, my love. There was no other way.” She leans forwards and places a kiss on each of his scars. “I missed you as I would the sun.” He takes her hands into his and kisses them.

“My moons and stars.” For a moment they are the only ones in existence. You’re only a few feet away from them and uncomfortable as hell. The interloper is you. You take their warm wistful gaze at one another as the cue to beat a retreat before you choke on the warm fuzzy feelings radiating from the pair. 

Flash stepping is a beautiful thing. A few seconds longer and you would have needed to punch a wall to feel manly again. You end up near the guys. You’re cool with Captor, but Vantas just rubs you the wrong way. Makara likes him so you’re just going to have to deal with it. Speaking of Mr. McNubbertons it looks like his think pan just burnt out due to shock and disbelief. If his jaw was hanging any lower you could use the rounded protuberances he calls fangs to hang your keys. 

“Cronus,” he says the name as if doing so pains him mentally and physically. “She’s red for him? Him?” He looks as if he doesn’t know whether he should be more confused or outraged. Trolls must have a hell of a lot of facial muscles for him to be able to pull that off. “That nookstain hit on everyone.” The perplexed troll now has Makara and Captor’s undivided attention. “I shouldn’t shame him for his promiscuous behavior. It is not my place nor anyone else’s to judge the way in which he fills or,” he coughs, “attempts to fill his quadrants.” 

“Moirailbro you never met Dualscar.” 

“I was talking about Cronus, his Beforus iteration.” Captor and Makara nod like officers listening to some whack job rambling on about how they were abducted by little grey aliens that forced them to slow dance. Vantas sighs to the point that you’re surprised his lungs haven’t collapsed. “Listen lumpsquirts, I know that you have prior fucking information concerning what I am about to astound your pan addled minds with because I was the one that divulged such information to you in the first place. I have memories of Beforus.”

“Really? You don’t say SL? Was Beforus a veritable utopia? A land where the hemocaste still existed yet all trolls frolicked in their unbridled freedom and happiness? Because I think I heard this story before.”

“Psiionic shut your chitinous wind hole. The point I was trying to make is that not only do I have memories of Beforus, but that I also have memories of us. Our Beforus iterations if you will.” He glances between Captor and Makara, looks like this little revelation is news to them. “Now I am quite sure that I am literally unable to offend the both of you so I’ll skip the superfluous trigger warnings.” 

Makara snorts. “I am a motherfucking trigger warning,” Vantas ignores him like he’s had years of practice. 

“Continuing on, from what I have been able to gather the Beforus iterations and Alternian alterations do share commonalities however, they do have notable differences. It is a case of nature versus nurture. We are shaped not only by our genetics but also by our experiences. Differences arise in our personalities, actions, and motivations despite our identical genes because we have endured vastly different circumstances in not only our early grub development but throughout our entire lives. Since our Alternian selves do share the exact same genes as our Beforus selves it would make perfect sense for us to have personality traits or characteristics in common with one another. For example Psiionic I think that you and your Beforus counterpart have a plethora of shared peculiarities. You are both sarcastic bastards that swear and make inappropriate comments during even the most inopportune occasions. Say for instance when a highly esteemed member of the Alternian special forces is about to flay us alive. That is not the proper time to mock his genitalia, not that I am condoning the belittlement of another’s bulge, but it is far from fucking intelligent to remark that he is over compensating for something by wielding an extraordinarily large mace when he is about to cull us with said mace. Also you are both physically uncoordinated. Not to make fun at your expense but it is good that you were blessed with psionic capabilities otherwise you would not have survived wigglerhood without cracking your thinkpan on some random rock in the brooding caverns.” He looks over to Makara without pausing. “Yes I believe that mutations are gifts that we should celebrate and not curses that are deserving of removal from the genetic slurry.”

“I’m not saying a motherfucking disparaging thing my most wicked invertebrother.” Vantas scrutinizes the clown and nods.

“Now where was I?” This rant will never end if you do not take drastic measures. It’s either do or die time Strider. You clear your throat.

“You were explaining that the Beforus iterations share common traits with your Alternian selves and even though they are not the same troll, those similarities lead you to believe that the troll macking on your mom is a complete scumbag.” Captor sneaks you a fist bump for the redirect as Vantas whips around to find that yes indeed Dualscar is getting some wicked cuddle action with his mom while they gaze at the stars. His eyes narrow to slits and the noise he produces sounds like it could peel paint. 

“His existence displeases me greatly.”

“I just need to make a few things clear bro.” The troll is not pleased but humors you anyways. “Is the Dolorosa your mom?”

“Yes, she found me as a grub and raised me, I consider her my mother.” 

“And she is flushed for Dualscar?” He glances back at the pair and sighs.

“It would seem so.”

“So,” how do you put this delicately? Fuck delicacy in its lace panty covered plush rump. “It wouldn’t be that far of a stretch to say that they pailed.” He flinches at the mental image that you just put in his mind. 

“Considering that failure to have a filled pail for the drones to collect results in death, then no it is not.” 

“That watery prick fucked your mom.” The troll is speechless. You gather from the looks that Makara and Captor are giving you that this is quite an accomplishment. Go you. “I’m not an expert on you little grey dudes, but us human have a term for people that fuck mothers. We call them motherfuckers. Dualscar is a motherfucker.” Vantas stews.

“Motherfucker was the last word that I uttered while I was alive. I did not know what it meant at the time, however it does aptly describe my rage and disgust that I felt at that time and what I feel towards him now. That motherfucker.” 

“Kankri I have someone I would like to introduce you to.” You want the squeak he makes as he turns around and sees his mother’s arm around the fishy bastard’s as your text notification and a picture of his startled face for your background. That shit is priceless. The Dolorosa makes up for his glaring lack of social graces and brushes over the fact that her son just called her matesprit a motherfucker behind his back. “Kankri this is the Orphaner Dualscar.” 

“Darlin’ there’s no need for you to address me by my title anymore.” The look they share is giving you diabetes. 

“Kankri this is,” her cheeks have a slight green tint the same shade as the trim on her dress, “Cronus Ampora my matesprit. Cronus this is my son Kankri.” 

“Hey chief,” the water breather takes out a cigarette tucked behind his ear and smiles. That is the smarmy grin of a man that is planning on banging someone’s mom. 

“Hello,” Nubs almost chokes on the word. Dolorosa smiles like she knows this is the best she’s going to get and smoothes out her dress. The ensuing silence is painful for everyone. You could hear a cricket fart. 

“Well then. Cronus has graciously invited me to his ship to get reacquainted and I accepted.” Camel meet straw that’s going to break your back. You watch with rapt attention as Vantas official loses his damn mind. 

“How the fuck is following him back to his ship a good idea? He forcibly eviscerated the bubble without a single forethought for the inhabitants. You’ll be alone… with him.” Vantas stops cold with one look from his mother. You remind yourself a second time to never piss her off. 

“My little one I am not a defenseless creature in need of protection but I do acknowledge that you are concerned for my wellbeing. However, what you must keep in mind is that Cronus is my matesprit. I have known him for centuries. I know what he is capable of, and I know that he has nothing but the best intentions. If an unforeseeable situation were to arise and I was no longer ‘okay’ either he or I are perfectly capable of making sure that I return to a suitable state of being.” She smiles and tucks a lock of his wavy nest of hair behind one of his nubby horns. “I will return to you soon my son. Until then enjoy the time you have will your moirails. I am sure that they have waited a long time to see you again. I love you my vibrant little grub.”

“I love you too,” he mumbles. The Dolorosa places a kiss on his forehead and turns to Dualscar. 

“Shall vwe?” She wraps her pale lithe fingers around his calloused outstretch hand. They walk side by side through the desert to the stars. Before they exit the bubble Dualscar looks over his shoulder, gives Vantas a wink and wiggles his fins. You don’t know what the fin wiggle meant but from Captor’s expression you’re almost certain it’s pretty fucking insulting. 

“It’s like he’s incapable of not being a skeevy wader.” And Vantas goes from sullen to mildly outraged in a flat nanosecond. 

“Psiionic what the bulge blistering fuck I know we’ve had a talk about why we shouldn’t use divisive terms like that.” 

“What about GH he says slurs as often as he breathes?”

“He’s a lost cause; I still have hope for you.” Vantas and Captor both look to Makara. He just shrugs his shoulders. “See?” The troll pauses. “Wait one inflamed nook pustule seeping moment. That fin wiggle meant something didn’t it? Didn’t it?” he growls. 

Captor raises his hands. “I’m not telling you SL.” 

“Why?” His eyes narrow to slits.

“Because you’ll kill him.” Two trolls locked in a glare off is just thrilling.

“Who wants sushi?” That gets their attention.

“What’s sushi?” Captor asks. He needs to stay away from words with that many ss. 

“Raw fish,” you reply. Vantas cackles. Yep he’s lost it.

“SL don’t kill my kismesis.”

Eternity is going to be a long fucking time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Death by dialogue.


	31. Yesterday, Hate was Such an Easy Game to Play

You don’t hear him approach which unnerves the fuck out of you. Vantas is fuming, uttering a Mobius strip of profanities involving a litany of body functions, some of which you understand and others you’re guessing are more of a troll thing. Cursing Dualscar with weeping seed flap lesions and derivations thereof seem to be his favorite flavor of the moment. Captor and Makara are hip deep in a bullshit session that also centers around Dualscar’s nook and bulge replete with octopus sucker-like protrusions. All you can think of is WTMI. The noise level in this section of the bubble is relatively high, but you should have heard him. Nothing that big is that quiet. Check that, big is an understatement. Massive, gargantuan, and colossal are much better descriptors for the troll who is only shorter than Makara due to his unwieldy mane of hair. Darkleer is built like a tank. He is tall, broad, a solid mountain of muscle, but silent as a tomb. You don’t notice that he’s a few feet from Makara until the Disciple bounds up to him. He could have killed all of you before you even had a chance to realize what was happening. You are not used to being in this situation. You are used to putting other people in this situation. 

The list of people that you should never piss off should not be this long and growing. His eyes are hidden behind the protective shades built into his helmet; you cannot help but feel that he is watching you while you contemplate whether or not you could take him. The meteor was bigger, but the uneasy feeling just won’t leave the pit of your stomach. Looking at him makes you feel as if you are looking into nothing, a void. He has no presence and that is even more unsettling than the strongest bloodlust you ever felt from an opponent. 

“Meulin, I have something that I wish to discuss with the highblood. I will return to your side shortly.” His only weakness is the Disciple. You don’t like the contingency plan that forms in your head. Some days you wish that you can turn it off, but you just can’t. She warily eyes Makara before she looks back to him. Darkleer attempts a reassuring pat and she gives in with an exasperated sigh.

“Purromise me that you won’t do anything too unadvised.” 

“I purromise that I will be on my best behoovior.” His answer seems to satisfy her to a point. Vantas rests him face in his palms and mutters a prayer to be delivered from animal puns.

“If you don’t return in an acceptable ameownt of time I will come back for you. Understand?”

“I understand purrfectly.” Her face lights up in a grin at his response and socks him playfully in the arm before leaving. He watches her exit before turning his attention back to the group. “Grand Highblood, sir I must speak with you.” Darkleer remains stoic while the other trolls are decidedly not. Captor’s and Vantas’s unease is palpable, Makara’s is simmering beneath his surface. 

“You may proceed Expatriate.” Darkleer nods.

“Unless I am mistaken highblood I thought that I heard your moirail refer to you as Kurloz.” Makara’s unease cranks up from a simmer to a boil. Darkleer weighs his words carefully before continuing. You don’t like where this is heading. “I know that this is not my place to ask, but are you Kurloz Makara?” 

“Yes.” Makara’s expression is one of well-deserved dread. Darkleer looks surprisingly hopeful. 

“Were you recruited in Sector 3.141?” Your troll looks puzzled. “The Sector that encompassed the Southern portion of the Tiberius Range?” Makara swallows. 

“Yes.” You hear the leather of his gloves grind as Darkleer balls his hands into fists. Makara shifts his right foot back to brace himself but makes no effort to fight or flee. You unsheathe your sword as you hear the crackling of Captor’s sparks. A hand on your chest stops you.

“Wait.” It’s Vantas. Well that is unexpected. You barely see the flash of Darkleer’s right hook aimed at Makara’s jaw, but boy howdy do you hear it. Makara staggers but he doesn’t fall. Darkleer yanks him up by his shirt and smashes their lips together. Nope. Nope, that is unexpected. You’re a bit too deep in shock to decide if you want to kill him. “They were kismesises.” 

“What?” You break out of your my boyfriend is getting forcibly macked on and is starting to reciprocate stupor. Vantas tries not to look at you like you’re an idiot but fails. He honestly wasn’t trying that hard. 

“Determining the bonds between others is one of the few things that I do well. Actually it’s the thing that I do well.” Now boarding the self- loathing train, please have your tickets ready to be collected.

“Too bad your magic powers don’t work on yourself,” Captor snickers as he dodges a not so playful swipe from Vantas. Darkleer finally removes himself from your boyfriend. He stares at him for a few moments longer than you find acceptable before stepping back to create an appropriate distance between them. 

“I do not understand how this is possible. I had seen you multiple occasions after your adult molt.” He pauses. “I thought that you had died.” Makara stares at a rock on the desert floor for an inordinate amount of time as he scratches the back of his neck. He exhales before looking up to the troll.

“I.” He stops and glances at Vantas and Captor. “Horuss, I molted a second time.” Vanta’s hissed gasp is barely audible. You take it that molting twice isn’t exactly normal. “The Grand Highblood was waiting till I emerged from the chrysalis to get his cull on.” He chuckles. “I guess the Mirthful Messiahs were on my side that day. I culled him before he could cull me. And that’s how I became the Grand Motherfucking Highblood. I took his title, I changed my paint, and I culled anyone who questioned my identity.” He grins. “Us juggalos all motherfucking look the same so no one would notice that I was gone. No one but you.” He pauses. “It was best for you to think that I was dead. I told myself that you wouldn’t want to taint your slurry with a mutant. But I knew that you would do your duty to the Empire and cull me on site. I would be dead and you would have been executed for killing the Grand Highblood. It was a difficult decision but it was the best for the both of us.” 

“Kurloz, I would not have betrayed your trust in me.”

“Horuss, the troll you are now might not have. But back then, you were a troll of strong convictions. You can’t tell me that you wouldn’t have done what you thought was best for the Empire.” Darkleer has no response. An uncomfortable silence hangs heavy in the air. 

“Were your lingering feelings the motive for entrusting such a task to me?” Makara doesn’t answer his question right away.

“Would it make you feel better if you thought that you were just another motherfucking pawn?”

“It’s a lowblood’s place to serve their betters.” He idly plays with the straps on his wrist guards. “That’s what I believed in then, before her.”

“You never thought that I was your better Horuss,” he chuckles.

“You never defeated me in combat Kurloz.” Makara nods with a grin.

“We are all pawns, the only difference is if we are motherfucking aware of it or not. I knew you Horuss. I trusted you, I respected you, and I knew what you were capable of. Giving you a chance to be happy with catsis was a miraculous little bonus.”

“My feelings towards you did not always sway black near the end.” Darkleer loved him.

“I know.” And Makara knew that subjugglators were not allowed to have matesprits. It couldn’t have worked even in the best of circumstances. Darkleer looks at you and then to Makara.

“I am glad that you found happiness Kurloz.” 

“And I’m glad you found your green catsis among the stars.” Darkleer nods and leaves.

“Are you just going to watch him go?” Vantas asks.

“I already have let him go moirailbro, I already have.”


	32. His Name was Cal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That which doesn't kill you haunts you forever. Bro spills his guts figuratively.

The stars are beautiful, thousands of pin pricks of light piercing the great black expanse. But sitting on shards of rust colored go fuck yourself is a real pain in the ass. Literally your ass hurts and there is nary a crop or whip in sight. What a shame. What is in sight besides the stars is a far cry from the memory of celestial bodies but inspires a similar reaction. You don’t know why he exists but you’re glad he does. Makara hasn’t moved from his current position since you arrived. His ass and bare feet are flat on the ground. He’s slouched forward resting on his folded arms bridging his bent knees. It’s a variation of his default brooding position since he’s sans smuppet pile. He excused himself from the group shortly after Darkleer left with a few short words. Vantas started after him but was stopped by a slow head shake from Captor. You lingered before going after him instead. You took your time following his footprints. They grew smaller as the distance between him and the remaining trolls grew farther. You found him shrunk down to apartment size sitting alone in the desert staring up at the two moons hanging low in the sky. He did not turn to greet you; he just sat there fixated on the moons. You sat down beside him leaving a few feet between the two of you. Sometimes silence is necessary. 

You’ve know Makara close to a year now and you can count the number of times that he willingly talked about his feelings before today without needing to use your fingers or toes. The grand total is a whopping zero. He never discussed his feelings and neither did you. You could see it in his eyes when he looked at you, the distance he would sit from you when you two ate together, the fact that you two ate together. There were times when you came dangerously close, when a sentence or two was uttered; when you would hold his gaze for just long enough that his lips would part like he wanted to say something. For most of the part body language was sufficient. You had a mutual understanding that both of you were utter crap at talking about anything that had the possibility at being construed as meaningful. All of that glaring lack of practice made today that much harder to watch. You can feel how raw he is, how stripped bare. He’s the Grand Motherfucking Highblood, the stuff that day terrors are made of, the monster that goes bump in the day. He’s the Grand Motherfucking Highblood and he’s vulnerable as hell. His feelings have been forced out of him like an unholy torrent. The levee broke and he just can’t deal. 

Today has been fucking long. He’s spent so long either denying that his feelings exist or culling until they get buried under the bodies that he just can’t handle. He looks numb and empty and you can’t blame him. You would be decimated if you went through a fraction of what he did today. He culled a memory of himself along with the Condescension. He was reunited with the one person that he didn’t even dare dream of seeing again only to relieve the memory in which he had to watch him die. You saw Makara lose all hope when the one that could save him was executed. He gave into the sun only to be dragged back from the edge of death and forced into an eternity of servitude to the Empire by abominations not even Lovecraft could dream up. And to top it all off, because fate is never that kind, he had to be reminded of the love that he had to let go. 

It’s been a long fucking day for everyone. You take out an orange Faygo and crack it open. The faint hiss grabs his attention. He doesn’t look at you long. A quick flicker before he turns away. He looks so much like the young troll on the beach watching his goatdad swim away for the final time. It wrenches at you heart like it’s trying to pull it out of your chest. You’re not his luscus, you aren’t leaving him. You are a bad bean burrito and you will linger like the scent of a dead woodchuck festering underneath a porch in the dog days of summer. You will stay with him long after he wants you gone. You will stay whether he wants you to or not. You’re not losing someone else again. You’re not failing someone else again. You take a swig of soda and hold it out to him. He looks at it but doesn’t take it. You set it down between you two and sigh. This isn’t going to be easy but what worthwhile ever is? You take off your cap and run your fingers through your hair before putting it back on. 

“His name was Cal and I loved him more than anything in this world. We met in foster care.” Makara isn’t familiar with the term. Some explanation might help, which is going to dredge up even more. Yeah, this isn’t going to be easy. “For humans it takes a man and woman to make a child. Actually just an egg, sperm, and a womb, but for simplicity sake lets go with man and woman. The humans that give birth to babies usually raise them. We call them parents. I,” you idly fiddle with your gloves, “I never knew my parents. They abandoned me when I was real young. I don’t have any memories of them, just a birth certificate with my name on it.” You haven’t even told Dave this, and you’re telling him, strange world. “I was unwanted, and like all other unwanted children I became a ward of the state. I became the government’s problem. In a lot of cases the little shits stick around for a few years and get adopted by a new set of parents. They get a new set of people who will love them and take care of them. I never got adopted.” You take a much needed swig of a cheap orange crutch. “People took one look at my eyes and they would run to the hills. They thought that I was a freak, that there was something wrong with me, and eventually I started to believe them.” 

“When I was a teenage I got passed around to different foster homes, only staying long enough to wear out their patience. I was sent to people who didn’t want to deal with me but did it out of obligation, guilt, or greed. At one of the homes I met Cal. He was,” you chuckle, “the dopest person I had ever met. His jokes were the funniest and his raps were the sickest. And he thought that my eyes, what made me a freak, were cool.” You sigh. “No one before him accepted me for me. No one. It didn’t take long for use to become friends. We spent every waking moment together. I was a shitastic beat box but he rapped over it no matter how much the neighborhood kids laughed at us.” You pause and take another swig. “He was the first person that I fell in love with, the only one for so long. I know that we were young. We were only fifteen, but I know that what I felt for him was love. Even now you can’t convince me different. But that was back in the day in Texas. Having thoughts like those for another guy could get you killed. I loved him just the same.” The stars are beautiful, even through tears. 

“He got hit by a car coming home from school. There wasn’t anything that I could do. It just happened so fast. One moment we were joking and the next there was just so much blood. He was lying on the street and he wasn’t moving. The ambulance took forever to arrive. It was a bad neighborhood. He got to the hospital only to have the doctors declare him brain dead. There was nothing that they could do they told me. They waited a few days before they pulled the plug due to hospital policy. I always wondered if he had better insurance that the doctors would have tried harder. If he had parents to beg and plead for them to save their son that they would have tried alternatives that could have saved him. But we were unwanted. Nobody cared what happened to us. There was a time that I would have done anything to bring Cal back. I even made a puppet version of him to carry around with me. I missed him so much.”

“Makara, I know what it’s like to lose someone you love. I know that losing someone leaves this wound in you that never heals. It gets smaller over time and eventually scabs over. But it doesn’t take much for that scab to get ripped off and reopen that wound. I know that it hurt like hell and that it still does. I know that a part of you still loves Horuss, and its ok, I understand. A part of me still loves Cal and always will. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m here for you and I always will be.” 

He scoots behind you like a puppy scratching its butt on the carpet and wraps his arms and legs around yours. You’re surprised how comforting him leaning against you feels. He kisses the base of your neck before resting his chin on your shoulder. 

“Bro.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re a miracle this invertebrother don’t deserve.” 

“Too fucking bad. I’m going to stick with you like a radioactive barnacle.”

“Radiation makes a motherfucker stick better?”

“Yep.”

“Bitch tits.” He leans and grabs the two liter making you lean with him. He exhales and pulls you in tighter when he realizes that he would have to sit up to take a drink without soaking both of you in orange colored sugary fizz. He just picked using you as a head rest over his wicked elixir, yep feels pretty damn good. “It’s been a long motherfucking day.”

“You’re fucking preaching to the choir and all the sparkly angelic bitches in the heavenly host. It’s about time to blow this popsicle stand. This bubble is depressing. If I stay here much longer I’m going to start wishing for Dualscar to drop by.” 

“Bro… just… bro.”

“I wonder if he’ll show up if I say his name three times while looking at a fish bowl.” That gets Makara to crack up. You really missed hearing him laugh. It hasn’t been that long has it? Feels like it has. “Makara?”

“Yeah?”

“I vote we stay here till Vantas and Captor get curious and wander over.” 

“That’s a miraculous idea that this motherfucker can get behind.”


	33. None of Us are Alright

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bro is a dork and Vantas isn't much better.

“We were worried.” The tone is almost accusatory. Vantas’s eyes are slits, his mouth set in a grim line. He’s hovering over Makara like a triage nurse, his hands at the ready to treat any wounds his examination might uncover. He steps back after a few seconds with a huff. He isn’t satisfied, just momentarily appeased. He looks at you like you’re a bandage. You are not the brand nor type that he prefers but you’ve stopped the bleeding and that’s what matters. He wants to remove you but he doesn’t want to rip off the scab. The irritation he feels as he glares at you while you’re comfortably plopped in Makara’s lap is palpable. It is glorious. You push yourself further against Makara’s chest eliciting a low rumbling purr from him and a curled upper lip from Vantas. His fangs are short little nubs like his underdeveloped horns, how cute. 

“SL get a fucking room before you start physically molesting his shame globes. I know GH’s lap is spacious but he isn’t a concupiscent couch.” Vantas looks like he just swallowed a bug.

“You… you thought I was flirting?” he screeches. “With what? That?” You’re surprised that he doesn’t hyperextend his elbow when he flings his arm to point at you. Captor crosses his arms and gives Vantas a ‘who else do you think I was talking about’ look. His cocked hip makes him resemble a bent surly stick. Vantas glances at Makara for a measure of reassurance and you feel him shrug behind you. 

“Your rage has that TASTE moirailbro.” The troll looks disgusted. He huffs and crosses his arms defensively. They think he’s hate flirting, with you. How precious. Your chuckle goes unnoticed. 

“I would know,” Vantas growls. Captor rolls his eyes at his reply, or at least you think he rolled his eyes. It’s hard to tell when they are completely white but the accompanying head tilt helped. However, there are not so subtle differences between human and troll body language so you could be just hypothesizing out your perfectly plush rump. 

“This is why I don’t play with newbs.” Yeah that was definitely an eye roll. Makara nods behind you.

“The miraculous MOTHERFUCKING COMPLEXITIES just escape some.” Vantas glares, the focus of his agitation split between the two. You are absolutely seething with excitement. Who wouldn’t want to spend their afterlife with a desert full of cranky aliens in need of food and sleep? Speaking of food and sleep. 

“Well this is just a fucking thrill ride a minute.” Captor and Vantas almost look surprised to hear you talking. “I’m going to rustle up something eat, take a shit, shower, and catch some sleep.” And with that you stand up, dust off the red dirt still clinging to your jeans, and saunter off to your apartment. Makara is a grown ass adult; you have no doubt that he’ll be able to handle a slumber party with his friends without you. You are in need of well- deserved impromptu bro time with your best bro Cal, and some quality time to abuse your hello kitty shower poof. Yep sounds like a plan.

Being a light sleeper has both its advantages and disadvantages. The downside, being woken up every time your lil bro stubbed a toe while stumbling around in the dark to take a piss in the middle of the night. The upside is waking up to the faint pop of someone entering your bubble. May whatever deity that still remains have mercy on the bastard that wakes up Makara because he won’t. Your desire to see Makara eviscerate the intruder struggles against the siren song of the seven hundred and fifty thread count sheets that cover your futon. The Egyptian cotton’s valiant attempt to keep you swaddled in its comforting bosom comes crashing down like a hall of mirrors in an earthquake when you hear muffled yelling in the distance. This might be a problem. You groan and ooze out of the sheets. It takes you a matter of seconds to throw on clothes and head out the door. If this turns out to be anything short of the apocalypse you will return to the house to style your hair, until then you cram it under your cap and plan to maim if not kill anyone that makes a remark about it. 

You should be surprised by what you find but you aren’t which is surprising in and of itself. Maybe you are jaded by the amount of dicks you seem to be surrounded on a daily basis, metaphorical dicks, not physical dicks since trolls have bulges which do have dick like qualities but aren’t necessarily the same thing. Vantas is straddling the Summoner’s chest. The small troll is leaning over with a sickle waiting on either side of the Summoner’s neck. He’s trying to be threatening with his lips curled back in a snarl revealing the majority of his blunt fangs but he comes off as an angry cat. You wonder how many troll pornos start out this way. 

“Do not threaten my moirail you chafing bulge sore or I’ll gut you and impale your vomitus mass on a pike,” he growls. Being unarmed and one twitch away from decapitation by a troll with possible unresolved anger issues you would think that the Summoner would be more concerned for his own wellbeing. Instead of insuring that he survives the encounter he’s staring up at Vantas in reverent awe. 

“Sempai is sitting on top of me. He has to notice me now,” you murmur out loud. Captor leans to the side bumping your shoulder with his.

“What are you doing BS?” he whispers.

“Narrating.” 

“The Sufferer.” The Summoner says the name like he’s having a religious experience. Vantas watches in abject horror as the troll reaches up to touch his curly nest of hair with his unpinned arm.

“I need a lock of his hair to keep in my shrine.” Your falsetto could use work. Captor snickers anyways. “This is getting a little ‘hey little grub wanna get in my windowless transportation device’ vibe, aren’t you going to do something about it? He is your fated cuddle bro.” 

“SL is the one with two sickles to TS’s neck.” He gives a sideways glance over to Makara who is tense as hell and watching Vantas’s sickles with rapt attention. “Besides TS is GH’s kismesis. SL has no fucking clue how lucky he is that GH is pale for him.” 

“And if he wasn’t?”

“Remember when I told you that GH could cull every troll on a battleship?” You nod. “I know this because he did.” You raise your eyebrows and look at him over your shades.

“I’m threatening you with impending death don’t touch my horns you grub excretory slop,” Vantas shrieks as the Summoner’s hand looms closer. 

“The Admiral of the Fleet had TS’s execution broadcasted on the bridge on his ship so that GH could watch it live. I strongly doubt that CD informed the Admiral and the other officers of TS’s status. If she did they wouldn’t have let GH board their ship to congratulate them in person for the capture and execution of the leader of the lowblood rebellion.” He glances back over to Makara who doesn’t know who to be concerned for. “I’ll be right back I need to go pap his juggalo ass.” Captor leaves you to your own devices once more.

“Oh noes not my maidenly virtue.” Vantas shudders as the other troll gently brushes a clump of hair away from his face and behind a horn. His grey skin flushes bright red as he stares at the troll beneath him wide eyed. 

“Rufioh?” The Summoner smiles.

“Sempai noticed me.” There is no escaping those pearly whites, hot damn look at those fangs. 

“Oh fuck my kouhai is hot.”Vantas looks like he’s going to get one gusher of a nose bleed.

“You can touch my horns if you want,” He mumbles as he fiddles with the bottom of his sweater. Where the hell did he find that wool catastrophe? The sheep should flog the knitter for that lumpy abomination. He squeaks and throws his hands over his mouth. He must have just realized that he said that out loud. 

“I sounded like Damara. Not that I’m shaming her for her behavior, but I’m sure that there are those that would greatly appreciate if she would tone down her solicitations. What am I saying she isn’t even here anymore,” he nervously laughs. He suddenly stops and stares down at the Summoner who has no fucking clue what is going on. “I need ice,” Vantas blurts out, stumbles over the troll and sprints to the castle. The Summoner pushes himself up into sitting position. 

“Is the Sufferer going to be alright?” The troll seems genuinely concerned. Captor sighs and slowly shakes his head while he continues to pap Makara on the arm. 

“None of us are alright.”


	34. Have You Accepted the Sufferer as Your Lord and Savior

“What was that all about?” Vantas jerks his head out of Makara’s refrigerator. He sees you leaning up against the door frame with a bag of ice chilling out in your hand and grimaces. He stomps over to grab the bag. You can’t help but be a little shit and jiggle the frosty much needed relief just out of his reach above your head. You’re a different species and you’re still a good six inches taller than him. His eyes flicker between you and the ice before he gives in with a huff. 

“His name is Rufioh. I have memories of him from Beforus. He was part of the group of twelve adolescent trolls that played the game and failed which resulted in the formation of Alternia.” 

“You played Sgrub?” He shakes his head.

“My pre-scratch iteration did, I just retained the memories. Of the twelve you have already met Kurloz, Mituna, Rufioh. Horuss, Meulin, Cronus, Porrim, and I. Porrim is my mother,” he answers your unasked question. “Meenah became the Condescension on Alternia, fitting because her actions resulted in its creation. You’ve witnessed my memory of her.” He takes a deep breath and exhales. “I do not recall seeing Damara, Latula, and Aranea during my time on Alternia. However, I would not rule out the possibility of meeting them among the stars.”

“Informative but not exactly the answer to my question.” You tilt your head down a fraction a look over your shades. “You can touch my horns if you want?” The troll blushes.

“If I had to describe them, the twelve, Cronus would be the one who hit on everybody. And Rufioh…” he trails off.

“He’s the one that everybody hit on.” Vantas squirms. The party in his pants looks like it just came off its hiatus. “Even you, he got your pure virginal panties soaked.”

“I was celibate in that life as well. He made me,” he pauses to gnaw at his bottom lip, “question my vows.”

“Celibate?” Vantas glares at you.

“I had my reasons. I won’t judge you for the amount of sexual congress that you have engaged in during your lifetime, don’t judge me for mine.”

“Fair enough. Live and let live I can handle that.” A lull in the conversation follows in your statement’s wake. Vantas has a difficult time dealing with silence. He doesn’t know what to do with himself. 

“I never thought that I would be reunited with him, with any of them for that matter.” He squirms and looks back to the bag of ice melting in your hot little hands. You toss him the bag and he presses the ice to his crotch with a hiss.

“He seemed …interested,” you aren’t quite sure if that is the best way to describe the Summoner’s look of adoration. He reminds you of every time your lil bro snuck a look at your turntables when he thought you weren’t watching. It’s a look of reverent awe. But the Summoner isn’t Dave. He isn’t human, he’s a troll and that look could have a completely different meaning, or not. Maybe the nubbed wonder is troll Jesus or something. Possible troll Jesus is up to his high pants in pondering, his pitifully short claws idly scratching at the birds nest on his head, his blunt fangs worrying at his bottom lip. Yeah this guy, savior of all Alternia. Strider you are hilarious. Why thank you inner self. What you’ve learned from the afterlife is even if you can’t amuse anyone else, you can at least amuse yourself. That has to count for something. Vantas is still deep in thought after your masturbatory mental bro fist; he must be analyzing the Summoner’s previous actions. Time to find out. “Do you want him to touch you or not?” He mulls it over. 

“I’m feeling conflicted.” You quirk an eyebrow. “He and I did not meet during my lifetime. He seems to have me mistaken for a troll called the Sufferer. He would not want me.” Debbie Downer gets interrupted when Captor pops his head from behind the other side of the doorway.

“SL get your cobweb infested nook out here.”

“My nook is not infested with little web beasts horn muncher,” Vantas hisses. “Just because it does not get visited with the same frequency of your does not give you free reign to question my hygiene regiment.” 

“If it takes over a minute you aren’t cleaning it, you’re playing with it.” Vantas starts to sputter and Captor effectively nips it in the bud. 

“Stop flipping your shit SL. The state of your nook and what you do with it in the absolution chamber isn’t what’s important here. What is of the upmost importance is not leaving me alone with that nubslurping fuckpod. He won’t stop staring, it’s creeping me the fuck out.” 

“Wasn’t the clown with you?”

“He’s outside quote burning the meats in the miraculous manner fit for the messiahs end quote. And that quote his moirailbro should get his wicked chill on with his other moirailbro and his most faithful follower end quote.” 

“Makara’s grilling and he doesn’t want you outside.” That troll is a god in front of a grill.

“GH is making these pale sea bugs covered in oink beast strips on a stick.”

“Sweet, bacon wrapped shrimp.” Awww yisss. That and a little bar-b-que sauce is going to make putting up with all of these rampant idiots that much easier. 

“You’re looking forward to consuming sea bugs?” You’ve witnessed first -hand what trolls willingly eat, Vantas should not have that look of disgust plastered on his face. 

“Ya’ll eat grubs so you don’t get to say shit about shrimp.” Bacon wrapped shrimp are divine; you will have none of the nubby horned one’s blasphemy. Captor doesn’t seem to give a single fuck but Vantas still seems wary of the joys shrimp and all its fine iterations can bring. 

“My motherfuckers it is time to PARTAKE IN THE JOYS the messiahs have bestowed upon us foolish deceased invertebrothers,” Makara calls from the other room. A few minutes later you are happily stuffing your face with the most wicked of grilled shrimp on a stick while sitting on the floor in the grand hall around the impressive spread your boyfriend busted his fine ass over. Makara is halfway through a slab of green steak while Captor is on his second. The lisping bastard is a fucking black hole; any food that gets near his mouth disappears. The Summoner and Vantas are another matter. The Summoner is eating like he’s trying to impress his date’s parents while furtively glancing up at Vantas between bites. You know that he doesn’t eat like this. Well you don’t know, but you know. This isn’t just a case of ‘please sempai notice me’ this is hard core fan girling. Thank whatever deity that is out there that he is the silent type at least. Hearing him squealing over the nubby bastard would be like when you first watched Paint Your Wagon. You will never recover from the mental scarring you received when you saw Clint Eastwood singing. Never. You shudder at the thought and glance over to Vantas. He’s attempting not to be unnerved by the other troll’s actions and is failing miserably. A few more minutes and that twitch might just become permanent. The Summoner starts playing the small silver charm around his neck and looks down at the nubbed one, Vantas stops mid bite and locks onto the necklace. Shit hits the fans the instant the piece of chard bleat beast hits the plate.

“What the ever living grub fuckery is this?” Vantas leaps to his feet and chucks his fork to the floor so hard it bounces like a cafeteria meatball. “And what the fuck does that nook cleansing device and the bag it came in have around his neck?” he shrieks jabbing his finger at the Summoner and drawing furious circles in the air around him. The Summoner looks like a student who just got asked a question in algrebra class. His white eyes are wide, his mouth slightly agape in abject horror, and neither Makara nor Captor look like they are going to pull him out of the way of the oncoming bus that is Kankri Vantas. 

“It’s uh the symbol of the cult of the um Sufferer.”

“So why in the festering bulge blisters are you fucking fondling it and wistfully looking at me like I’m some dream quadrant mate of yours. I know what an abject failure at life and the afterlife I am so I know that you don’t want this,” he gestures to himself. 

“Because um you’re the Sufferer?” he says it like he hopes it’s the right answer. Vantas points a finger at himself.

“I am this Sufferer.” He pauses giggling to himself. “And I have a cult.” He waits while the absurdity of it settles in. He starts to laugh manically when no one else does. The troll is losing his damn mind. “Next you’ll be telling me that you think that I’m some messiah.” His laughing slowly dies to a sputtering trickle when all of the other trolls are painfully silent. 

“Did no one ever tell you moirail bro? Rosa, not even catsis?” 

“Tell me what?” Makara and Captor break off from the circle to a far corner of the hall and have a very animated whispered discussion followed by a heated game of rock paper scissors. Captor hisses and stalks back to the circle while Makara does his little happy dance. You’re glad that he’s happy, but that dance is retina scorching terrible. You don’t care that its derived from the dances held sacred by his religion, no one should have to witness that, no one. Once the eyeball pain is over and everyone is sitting Captor pours himself a shot of something alcoholic and slams it. He takes a look at Vantas staring at him and pours himself another. How bad can this be?

“SL, you are the Sufferer. The Cult of the Sufferer was formed by the followers of your teachings in the centuries after your martyrization. It evolved into a religion and became the impetus for multiple revolts and rebellions over the millennia. The last of which was led by TS.” Shut the front door. 

“Holy shit, you’re troll Jesus.” Vantas’s attention flickers to you and settles on the floor. He’s in shock, stunned into silence by the revelation and you can’t fucking blame him. He doesn’t have a high opinion of himself but you have a feeling that he would walk over the flaming coals of hell and back if he thought he could help someone by doing it. Vantas snaps out of it with a snicker and looks up at the Summoner.

“I guess I’m not exactly the messiah you were expecting.” The Summoner grins and shrugs. 

“I wasn’t expecting the um … colorful swearing and gratuitous references to bodily functions and ailments. Not quite what was in the book.” 

“There’s a book?” The Summoner nods and hands Vantas a well-worn tome. The brick of paper could put war and peace to shame. The troll stares at it questioningly and hefts it in his hands. 

“I was only alive for sixteen sweeps.” He opens up the book and starts flipping through the pages. “Even if someone recorded every rant of mine it would not be enough to fill this fucker to capacity.” Captor and Makara shoot him a look. “Alright half of my rants maybe.” They keep staring. “I am not that loquacious.” 

“Sure SL. Mhm.” Vantas looks for back up from Makara. 

“Moirailbro when you got something in mind to say you MOTHERFUCKING SAY IT.” 

“No one can escape the miles,” Captor starts at a whisper, “for they are doomed a fate far worse than culling by the hands of the Empress herself the moment SL opens his mouth.” The troll cackles as Vantas hits him with the book. “Ask him about social justice.” 

“Motherfucker DON’T,” Makara cuts the Summoner off before he has the chance. Vantas huffs and goes back to pouring through the book. 

“My one wish is for you all to contract dysentery and be reduced to the bottomless purulent pools of ungrateful loose shit that you are,” he grumbles. 

“Pale for you too my FEISTY INVERTEBROTHER.”

“Go self-pail.” The troll starts flipping through the pages pausing long enough to read a short passage before moving onto the next page. “What the bulgeslurping fuck is this shit? I didn’t do that. Or that. This is… this is pure and utter fiction based on a nook whiff of reality written by a fanatic. This isn’t by any means an accurate representation of what happened during the course of my lifetime. Each moment of my life has been mashed, tormented, and sprinkled with minuscule sparkling bits of plastic until it fit some poor demented bastard’s fantasy. This is fiction written by fanatics.” He pauses. “Fanfiction.” He grimaces while staring at the book. “And in which gangrenous nook are all the fucking swear words?” He looks up and shakes the tome. “There isn’t a single fucking swearword in this and I know that Psionic and I swear a wastechute load.” 

“Catsis WROTE IT and Darkleer TRANSCRIBED IT from her cave paintings.” Vantas stares at the book in his hand. 

“Meulin and Horuss wrote this.” He pauses. “That explains a lot. Pap the sea so you don’t throw up during a hangover and you suddenly become a messiah,” he mutters. 

“The sea did calm down after that SL.”

“That was a coincidence and I still threw up.”

“Well the ability to hold your liquor isn’t a requirement to become the one that gives hope to millions.” 

“Apparently not.”


	35. Get Lucky

You don’t think that you’ll ever get used to how Darkleer just appears. One moment Vantas is flipping through pages muttering to himself while the rest of you are packing it in and the next moment the absurdly uptight armored behemoth is just there silently waiting at attention at a respectable distance from the circle. He and Makara have been recently reacquainted but old habits must die hard. Makara puts his fork down on his plate and the troll begins to speak. 

“Pardon for my intrusion during your meal Grand Highblood but it is necessary for me to speak with you.” Makara finishes chewing and points at the gap in the circle across from him.

“POP A SQUAT and we’ll get our motherfucking conversing on.” Darkleer glances at the offered seat on the floor and straightens.

“Kurloz, I have matters of a personal nature that I must discuss with you in private.” The Summoner’s initial mild interest at Darkleer’s arrival kicks into high gear the instant he hears him utter Makara’s first name. “Meulin has advised me that it is of the utmost importance that we further discuss the events that occurred during our last meeting.” Darkleer ignores the other troll’s scrutiny and keeps the entirety of his focus trained on Makara. You know that Darkleer is fully aware of the other troll; he simply does not find him worth his time. He is here for Makara, you and the other trolls’ presence is merely incidental. Darkleer doesn’t give a shit about you one way or another and honestly you think that it’s a good thing. From what you glean from the Summoner’s body language he does not share your sentiment. 

“Kurloz? He snorts and quirks his eyebrows. “You are aware that you are calling the Grand motherfucking Highblood by the name given to him by his luscus.” It comes off more of a statement than a question. “Who the fuck are you?” With that Darkleer deigns to look at the insect questioning him.

“I am his kismesis.” That earns him a smile full of fangs and a chuckle from the Summoner. “Kurloz Makara and I have been joined in a kismesitude lasting longer than members of your blood caste are expected to live,” the Summoner’s threat grin morphs to the beginnings of a thinly disguised snarl, “an age that I would be well within the realm of safe to assume that you never reached,” the words leave Darkleer’s lips at a low purr. He would make an excellent villain. Check that, he wouldn’t make an excellent villain; he was one, depending of course on which side you were on at the time. The Summoner stifles the snarl threatening to escape and manages to regain his composure as he stands up.

“Cold bloods,” he chuckles and starts to meander over to Darkleer. “Always so condescending, believing that they are superior for the sole reason that they live longer. Just because you inhabit the planet for a few sweeps longer than us does not mean that you truly live.” The Summoner makes eye contact with Darkleer as he emphasizes the last word and does not break it even after he stops a few feet away from the behemoth. “My name is Rufioh Nitram; I am the Summoner of the beasts of the air, earth, and seas. I am the leader of the Warm blood revolution, former commander of the Cavalreapers, kismesis of the Grand motherfucking Highblood himself, and I have culled more of your kind than you can imagine.” His wings unfurl behind him and fluff out like he’s giving himself a pat on the back. Darkleer seems mildly amused by his antics.

“His kismesis,” he murmurs. “Highbloods have a life expectancy much greater than both of ours combined. It would be foolish to assume that a troll of such standing as the Grand Highblood would have only one kismesis during the course of his lifetime. Given my extensive time with him I am well aware of his lack of taste in certain … areas. If he is willing to engage in activities with corpses then I should not be surprised that he was willing to lower his standards further to pail you.” 

You’re not sure if all the aloe in existence could help that burn. But it’s not Darkleer’s biting wit that the Summoner needs to worry about right now. Darkleer’s plan is unfolding and the Summoner is charging right into it. Darkleer is sure of himself and of his abilities but the Summoner was Makara’s kismesis. The Grand Highblood at one point in time considered themselves equals and therefore it would be wise to not underestimate him. Darkleer knows that a fight is inevitable and his plan is simple yet effective. Get him angry. Make him furious, make the bull see red, and he will make mistakes. Heated emotions in the midst of a fight only hinder never help. The corner of Darkleer’s lips twitches up ever so slightly as a he catches the glint of silver around the Summoner’s neck.

“I have been exceptionally rude; please allow me the pleasure of introducing myself. I am Horuss from the House of Zahhak. My title is The Executioner. And I am the one responsible for the death of your savior.” His smirk breaks into a full- fledged smile. The abyss just smiled back and it is one terrifying sadistic bastard. The Summoner is pass the point of feeling fear, brown blood drips from the cuts in the meat of his palms from where his claws bite into his flesh. His tenuous restraint snaps with a snarl and he lunges horns first at the troll’s midsection. He catches Darkleer off guard with the sheer force of his blow causing the mountain to brace himself against the impact. The Summoner lashes a flurry of blows to the troll’s unguarded lower torso, each hit aimed with the intent to leave the troll pissing blood for weeks. Darkleer sharply brings up his knee into the Summoner’s sternum as his drops elbow onto the other’s spine. The Summoner does not pull back after the blows; instead you see a flash of silver from each of his wrists. He jabs the hidden blades into Darkleer’s sides and pulls upwards sliding them up until reaching just below the troll’s armpits. He then slides his hands to the center of Darkleer’s chest and pushes them apart.

The Summoner licks the dark blue blood on the tip of a knife as Darkleer strips off his chest and back armor made useless by the Summoner cutting the straps holding it secure. He yanks a strapping off of the chest plate before casually tossing it onto the floor. You try to convince yourself that the sound of the stone cracking as the armor hits it with a heavy thud is all in your head. The cracks in the stone assure you that it is all too real. Darkleer then removes his helmet and discards it next to his armor. He pulls back his glorious flowing bishie hair and ties it into a pony tail with the strap. Oh you were not expecting him to be hot, but he is. Well damn. Makara’s got good taste, corpses aside. The Summoner smirks and his blades withdraw into his gauntlets with the flick of his wrists.

“I am going to enjoy culling you Zahhak.”

“So will I Nitram.” 

You use the lull in the action as they square off now unhindered by bulky armor and false assumptions to gauge the reaction of the other trolls. They aren’t where you expect them. They left the center of the hall where you all had been previously eating dinner, a good idea given its close proximity to two trolls who want to kill each other, and withdrew to a hastily rebuilt Mount Smuppet. Makara is comfortably reclining in the myriad of plush shapely rumps, a bag of what you assume is grub corn in one hand and a two liter of his ever present Faygo nestled by his feet. Vantas and Captor are having an animated conversation off to his side while trying not to take their eyes off of the two trolls circling each other. You’re still at a lost to what the fuck is actually going on when you flash step over to the massive pile of colorful felt abominations. Trolls have the ability to make death matches seem almost banal. 

“You cannot look me in the eyes and deny that you are not deep in the throes of objectifying the fuck out of them SL.” Vantas rips his attention away from the two brawling trolls to stare Captor straight in the eyes. He opens his mouth to talk, snaps it shut, and turns back to the fight with a huff. “SL if one of them doesn’t survive it won’t be because you’re staring at his perfectly defined ass. Believe it or not but you don’t have to feel guilty for every single fucking thing you do.” Darkleer ripping off the remaining shreds of his tattered shirt nips Vantas’ rebuttal in the bud. 

“Psionic I am deep in the throes of objectifying the fuck out of them,” Vantas sighs. Captor pats him on the back.

“Admittance is the first step to accepting that you’re a pervert just like the rest of us.” Troll Jesus is more worried about viewing his follower and the troll that killed him as sexual objects than the fact that the Summoner has Darkleer in a chokehold and that the behemoth is smearing him against the roughhewn stone walls in an attempt to scrap him off. This is just bizarre. You wander over to Makara because out of the three trolls he’s the one with strongest connection to them, Darkleer and the Summoner were both his kismesises at one point in time. 

“Makara, what the fuck bro?” He’s doing his best impression of Caesar watching the gladiatorial games in the Colosseum. He’s more calm, cool, and collected than a cucumber salad. All he needs is a servant holding a tray of grapes for him. 

“Nitram and Zahhak are both adult trolls with EXTENSIVE BACKGROUNDS in LIVE COMBAT situations. They CAN HANDLE their motherfucking selves. And besides if they do MANAGE TO CULL each other where else are they GOING TO GO?” 

“Praxis Four,” your answer earns you a grin. He’s completely fine with two of his exes beating the ever living fuck out of each other. 

Wait a hot minute. 

“They’re fighting over you.” It makes sense in a strange culling is a natural everyday event for trolls way. His grin widens further as he turns back just in time to see the Summoner go to strike at Darkleer’s bent knee and miss when the troll grabs him by his shirt, hefts him above his head, and throws him at the nearest wall. The Summoner hastily unfurls his wings and hovers a mere foot away from the intended target. He smirks when he lands and takes off what’s left of his shirt effectively removing Darkleer’s grappling advantage. Vantas isn’t the only one deep in the throes of objectifying their magnificently plush rumps. Captor brings your perving to a screeching halt. 

“Fuck yes TS and TE are fighting over GH for the privilege to sink their claws in him. GH is the most lusted after piece of caliginous action on and off Alternia. The hair, the horns, the fangs, the claws, the muscles, the scars, the chucklevoodoos, the title, the hundreds of times he culled his would be assassins while laughing at their suffering.” He cackles just as the Summoner hits the wall and jumps back into the fray without missing a beat. “He’s a walking wet dream if you’ve got the globes to fantasize about him. Fuck I want to impale someone on his horns just looking at them. I was tempted too before I found out what a lumbering disaster he is.” He looks over to his moirail. “Now whenever I see his hideous painted mug I want to pap him,” he says with a sigh. 

“Why sound so disappointed bro? Those meat hooks of his are great for scalp massages as well as disemboweling those suicidal enough to take him on.” Captor takes his eyes off Makara and leans towards you. 

“GH is a walking scar.” Captor gives it a few seconds for his statement to sink in. “He is coated.” 

“Yeah, so?” 

“Nothing makes a pail appear faster than a troll with an impressive set of scars.” Captor grins like the perverted old man he is. “Scars like GH’s let every other troll know that he is a cold blooded bad ass motherfucker. He can survive whatever gets throw at him and come out on top drenched in the blood of his enemies.”

“What if a troll doesn’t have any scars?”

“Then they have an overprotective moirail,” he says dismissively. 

“Darkleer doesn’t have single scar and my eyes have been all over him.” Captor’s lecherous grin disappears and he turns back to the two trolls partially coated in what you can only assume is the blood of Makara’s former victims wrestling on the floor in a knot of limbs. This is better than Turkish oil wrestling and you’ve seen that live. 

“Then that troll isn’t a troll,” he says his tone grim. “He’s death.” Darkleer pins the Summoner flat against the floor with a triumphant growl, a hand securing each wrist, his shins across the other’s. The Summoner thrashes against his captor in vain. You wait for the coup de grace but it never comes. Darkleer doesn’t rip the Summoner’s throat out. He just looks at him. The result of the clash of the titans is two half naked heavily panting trolls slick with sweat and who knows what else two pairs of pants away from obtaining carnal knowledge of one another and they’re staring at each other like they’re starting to reconsider the state of their pants. Yeah this beats Turkish oil wrestling hands down. 

“Even though the universe may change some things stay constant,” Vantas wistfully murmurs. 

“What bro?” Makara asks. 

“Serendipity.” You can almost see the kawaii sparkles in his eyes as he says the word. The troll is thrumming with barely contained excitement. 

“We’re still not following you.”

“Horuss and Rufioh were matesprits on Beforus. Their feelings transcended sessions and even death.” Makara honks.

“Horuss and Rufioh?”He still hasn’t finished laughing. “Matesprits?” Vantas nods as solemn as grave. “Really?” his laughing stops. “Matesprits. Mother fuck…,” he trails off. He just pulled a Vantas. 

“I think you broke GH’s pan.” 

You turn your attention back to the two trolls enraptured at each other’s gaze only to find that a third one has joined them. Random ass trolls really need to stop showing up in your bubble whenever they damn well please. You do not have time for this shit. Technically you do, you have until the end of what’s left of existence which could be in the next five minutes or eternity, depends on how a convoluted series of circumstances that were never thoroughly explained to you turn out. But boiled down it’s the principle of it. You don’t like strange chicks or dudes popping in for shits and giggles. She takes a long drag of her cigarette and smiles down at the trolls at her feet.

“三人組にこの二人組を作り、その後、本当の楽しみは、起動することができますすることができます。” She takes another drag as Darkleer raises his head to look up at her. The troll beams. 

“Hello Damara.” 

“私は昨夜目を覚ますと、あなたは、私はあなたが私なしで演奏見つけるここに続くように、私を食べるためにそこにいなかったことに気づいた。” 

Never mind she can stay. 

“The Handmaiden,” Makara whispers her name in horrified awe. 

“Sugar honey iced tea.” Vantas looks shell shocked. He starts shaking his head. “No. No. No. This can’t be happening. You can’t be here. They are perfect together,” his voice escalates to a shriek as he throws his hands up. Damara flips him off without looking at him. Oh you like her. 

“What pineapple do you have shoved up your nook this time?” He’s too wracked with worry to glare at you.

“Nothing good will come of this,” he whispers. 

“She is the HANDMAIDEN, the motherfucking harbinger of DEATH, DESTRUCTION, AND CHAOS. She has been present at the beginning of all CATASTROPHIC EVENTS AND TURNING POINTS in Alternian history. Her presence has never been a GOOD MOTHERFUCKING THING.” 

“Listen to me you pan addled grub fondling feculent frond humpers. Her being the bringer of overall bad shit isn’t the fucking point.”

“Then what is moirailbro?” Vantas huffs.

“Well first I have to set this up. I’ll skip the superfluous trigger warnings because as I’ve said before I sincerely doubt that I could trigger any of you three. On Beforus before the events of Sgrub…”

“Here we go again.”

“Psionic silence your chitinous windchute,” Vantas hisses. “Anyways back to what I was talking about before I was so rudely interrupted. On Beforus before the events of Sgrub the twelve trolls that would serve as players in the game lead relatively normal lives as teenagers by Beforus standards. Rufioh, however, was different from the others due to his development of wings during pupation. His mutation made him an outcaste despite the vastly improved social and cultural norms that Beforian society had over Alternian society. He did not have the constant threat of culling hanging over his head due to his mutation; however he did not feel like he belonged. To escape his unenviable status he joined a group of trolls who dwelled in the woods that called themselves the Lost Weeboos. He felt a kinship among the Weboos and developed strong bonds with their members. It is there that he met Damara and Horuss.” 

“Vantas annotated version, all three are standing up now and Damara is saying shit I haven’t heard since I last watched Back Door Hentai Nine.”

“You UNDERSTAND WHAT SHE’S SAYING Bro?”

“It sounds like it’s been run through an internet translator which threw proper grammar down a flight of too lazy to learn the actual language stairs but it’s close enough to Japanese.” Vantas huffs. 

“Fine I’ll forgo the all of the relevant background information which would be quite advantageous for you to make a properly informed decision on this matter.”

“Just get on with it SL.”

“Petulant bag of leprous bulges,” he mutters. “Rufioh and Damara became matesprits soon after he joined the Lost Weeboos. Damara was sane at the time and remained such even after her matespritship dissolved due to Rufioh’s flushed infidelity with Horuss.” 

“Rufioh had an affair with Horuss, which caused her and Rufioh to break up?”

“Yes.” 

“But his cheating on her isn’t what caused her to go crazier than a shit house rat?”

“No, I am getting to that part of the story. Damara did not become crazier than the metaphorical shit hive squeak beast until after Sgrub had commenced. Damara was driven off of the figurative deep end into a bottomless pit of vicious unstable insanity by the unending and equally reprehensible taunting by Meenah about her failed relationship with Rufioh. Eventually Damara snapped under the increasing mental torment and ended up paralyzing Rufioh from the neck down, killed Meenah in revenge during a duel, and may or may not have killed Horuss.” 

“Two things SL. Number one I’m taking DA’s side on this; it sounds like they got their just deserts. And number two TS, TE, and TH are not RF, HR, and DA. ”

“Psi can you repeat point number two only without the alphabet soup this time?” And now it’s Captor’s turn to huff at you.

“Point number two for BS because his limited mammalian pan can’t keep up. The Summoner, the Executioner, and the Handmaiden are not Rufioh, Horuss, and Damara; they are different trolls in a vastly different situation.” 

“Psibro’s right.”

“An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind fuckasses.”

“Then you don’t stir up shit with a motherfucker that can CULL YOUR DESERVING SELF. Don’t start shit you CAN’T FUCKING FINISH. Second MOTHERFUCKING RULE of Subjugglators.” 

“What’s the first rule GH?”

“Fuck with me or don’t follow orders and become a BLOODY SMEAR ON MY CLUB.” 

Vantas points to Captor, “fuck you,” he points of Makara, “fuck you,” and then points to you, “and most of all fuck you. We need to stop this before history repeats itself.” 

“Sorry Vantas, but fated romance held over from another universe has got nothing on some good threesome action.”

“What?” He whips around to see the three trolls talking to each other in very close proximity by troll standards.

“Threesome, ménage a trois, three trolls one pail.” The Summoner wanders over to your group before Vantas can unleash the tirade welling up. 

“I’m going to uh,” he sheepishly grins and motions over to Darkleer and Damara, “go now.” 

“Rufioh I have to warn you,” Captor shoots Vantas a pointed look. He sighs. “Look, if you inflict any grievous injury to Horuss physical or otherwise you should not worry about his wrath but his meowrail’s.” He facepalms. “I can’t believe I just said meowrail’s,” he mutters. “Fuck, back to what I was saying. Harm him and you’ll have to deal with Meulin,” The Summoner looks confused, “The Disciple. She used to fight drones, barehanded, for fun. Piss her off and she will hunt you down, eviscerate your sorry carcass, and use your blood for ink.” Vantas pats him on the shoulder. “Just thought you should know.” 

“Uh, thanks I guess.” You watch him leave with Darkleer and Damara. 

“He doesn’t know what he’s in for that poor bastard,” Vantas murmurs.


	36. Carry On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Carry on my wayward son_  
>  _There'll be peace when you are done_  
>  _Lay your weary head to rest_  
>  _Don't you cry no more_  
>  -Kansas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags will be updated later to avoid spoilers.

Your head is full of angry bees and your stomach is full of regret. You really need to stop having drinking contests with the trolls. Now how many more times are you going to say that in the afterlife? A lot. You’ve long since learned your lesson but your masochistic tendencies won’t let you escape the never ending loop. At least the tendencies have limited themselves to alcohol and sex. Hangovers you can handle but the brown acid aftershocks of chucklevoodoos not so much. Sopor laced tequila did not wreak as much havoc on your system as your idiotic request from Makara a few months ago. Maybe Captor is right and your survival instincts are just shot to hell from being dead. Or maybe it’s just you and your need to do ridiculously dangerous things for shits and giggles, which would neatly explain how your relationship with the clownfucker even started. You tentatively crack open a sleep encrusted eye and quickly snap it shut. Everything is too fucking bright. You feel around for your shade and unceremoniously jam them on.

“God said ‘let there be vodka’ and poof there it was in all its crystal clear glory. And God saw that it was good.” You sound like the hell you feel. Your skin feels clammy; the sheets have disappeared most likely in a misguided attempt to get revenge for the crime of making you sweat. You forgot how rough the material of futon is. “Then God said ‘let there be light’ and poof there it was in all its unforgiving radiant,” it’s early, you have the start of a hangover, and you already used glory, “…radiantfulness.” Not exactly your finest hour Strider. This is going to suck. You rub the sleep from your eyes and slowly will them to open. There’s someone hovering near the futon and it’s blurry. You close your eyes, rub them harder, and blink a few times for good measure. “And God said…,” the figure comes into focus. 

“Dave?” 

You push yourself up into sitting position and maneuver to the edge; your creaking joints fight you with stubborn tired purpose. He isn’t the Dave of your bubble. He isn’t the fragment of your lil bro that your subconscious willed into existence due to the guilt you felt because you failed the real one. That Dave is a pristine, perfect copy of a thirteen year old that haunts the memory of your brother’s room. That copy is the reason why you can count the amount of times you opened the door to his room over the course of three years on one hand. You dealt with dying, that was the easy part. You just can’t deal with the thought of leaving your little brother alone.

He isn’t the Dave of your bubble. He’s taller by a few inches, whip chord thin but not as thin, gangly, and full of angles as a kid just entering their teens. He’s older, his features more mature. He isn’t wearing the shades you gave him or the aviators given to him for his birthday by a friend a few years ago. His irises are red, brighter than the blood trail starting to dry running down from his nose and the few visible cuts and scrapes. This Dave is bloodied, bruised, and trembling. He watches as you stand and take a tentative step towards him. 

He jerks forward closing the gap between you and wraps his arms around your back curling his fingers into the fabric of your shirt and pressing his face against your chest. His tears are warm and wet. You wrap your arms around him and hold him as he weeps. You gingerly pull out the pair of shades shoved into his back pocket as he clings to you and look them over. The shades are beat to hell. One lens has a large crack spreading from the lower right corner working up to the upper left. It took the brunt of the blow to his nose. The black plastic frames of the aviators are covered with nicks and scratches, but you have no doubt these are the shades John gave to your brother. This isn’t a copy of Dave. This is Dave. You squeeze your arms tighter around him and dare to hope.

“We won Bro. We won,” his words are muffled by his tears, snot and fabric. It takes you a few moments to process the full enormity of words he’s spoken.  
Your brother is alive and so are you. You hold onto him until he starts to squirm. You relax your grip and step back giving him breathing room. He looks you over, double checking that you are in fact the genuine article and that he isn’t hallucinating. What do you even say in this situation? He and his friends fought an unwinnable war and won despite the odds saving all of existence in the process. There isn’t a reason for you to complicate this. Just tell him what you feel. 

“I’m proud of you bro.” You hold out your fist. His face explodes in a smile. He steps forwards and fist bumps you getting close enough for you to hook your arm around his neck pulling him into an under the arm head lock and give him the three years’ worth of noogies you owe him. He squeaks in surprise and flails chanting your name like if he says it enough you’ll let him go. After a few tortuous seconds he manages to worm out of you grasp. 

“Bro, not cool,” he pants as he tries to catch his breath but he still hasn’t stopped smiling. You get a good look at the damage. His nose might be broken but at a quick glance the rest of his injuries seem superficial. 

“You’re looking all manly there kiddo, you’re gonna have an impressive set of scars. I thought I taught you how to dodge better than that.” 

“Why don’t you go fight a big green fucker that can turn into a mile long rage snake and see how you fare yo.” Mile long rage snake? You raise your eyebrows over your shades. “Cherubs,” he says as he slowly shakes his head. 

“Cherubs?”

“Cherubs, and not those fat little diapered shits fluttering around all angelic like with tiny ass wings.” You ruffle a gloved hand in his light blond hair as his description of the big bad wingless cupid hulk rattles on. Dave’s back. Your little bro is back and your big bro instincts are compelling you to stop inventorying his injuries and get the first aid kit out of the bathroom to fix them. You stop mussing up his hair and try not to crumple under the weight of the sad puppy look that flashes across his face when you remove your hand. 

“Just gonna get the kit.” 

“The kit. You’re going to get the first aid kit. That’s a perfectly legit reason to wander off,” he reassures himself. “Don’t want me bleeding out all over the floor,” his chuckle fizzles out as you unconsciously rub where your scar would have been. He hastily looks away and starts fiddling with what looks like a phone. This isn’t awkward, not at all. You glance up to the door and find yourself staring at the teenage version of yourself propped up against the door frame. The younger iteration of you saw the whole thing. Nice. He has a few bruises and a split lip, but he’s more worn out than anything. The ‘I’m about to collapse effortless looking lean against a sturdy surface so I don’t fall down’ is a staple of yours. You stop as you walk past him on the way to the bathroom.

“You gonna live?” a corner of his lips quirks up ever so slightly at your question. 

“It’s only a flesh wound.” 

“Sit down before you fall down. You don’t have to impress anyone here, you’re a Strider, your level of swag is already set at epic.” His shades don’t leave yours until you continue your trek to the bathroom. You do however hear the sound of the futon creaking while you open the cabinet and retrieve the item of your most sacred quest. Burning curiosity wins out as you pass the mirror. Curiosity killed the cat. You back up stopping in front of the mirror and take off your shades. But satisfaction brought it back. Seeing yourself with pupils is just fucking weird after all this time. You are alive. Dave’s alive. The other you is alive. You have to find out what to call him before he permanently becomes known as the other you. 

The mood in the living room has completely changed in the few seconds you were gone. Dave and alternate you are both staring at the phones clutched in their hands. Dave is the first to speak.

“They’re gone. They aren’t here,” Dave mumbles. 

“Who aren’t here?” Dave tears himself away from his phone and glances up to you.

“The trolls.” What? Dave and his friends beat the game, of course they are here. They can’t not be here. The look on Dave’s face says otherwise. 

Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Don’t panic.

“Makara?” The living room and kitchen are littered with smuppets from sprung traps, not gathered in a lumpy colorful felt pile in the corner between the futon and entertainment center. The fridge is filled with swords and the oven with shurikens. The blender is still filled with the remains of a shredded smuppet. You remember the look he gave you when he cleaned the chunks of stuffing and bits of fabric out from around the blades. There isn’t a single sign of him in the apartment, not even an empty bottle of Faygo or skittles wrapper. 

Now is the time to panic. 

“Makara?” You double check the bathroom. “Kurloz?” Flash step to Dave’s room and the closet. “Chucklefuck this isn’t funny.” You climb up into the crawl space and wade through dusty smuppets to the back where your stash of duct tape is hidden. You drop down to the apartment through a hidden trap door, cross the apartment, and sprint up the flights of stairs to the rooftop. You kick the door open and are hit with the hot humid summer air. “Attila?” You scan the rooftop. He isn’t here. You’re alone on the rooftop left with the sound of gravel crunching underneath your knees and street traffic.


	37. My Wayward Son

“Dave.” He shuts the fridge door carton of aj in his hand and glances over to where you’re sitting at the kitchen table. “How long has it been?” He turns away from you as he sets the juice down on the countertop with a sigh. “Dave.” You know that you shouldn’t pick at this scab but you just can’t help it. “How long?” He opts to staring at the remaining over processed preformed bits of what passes as cereal idly floating in the bowl of milk sitting in front of you instead of dealing with you himself. Dirk is leaning up against the back of the futon noisily eating toast. He gives a total of zero shits. His default amount of shits is zero. He is either completely invested in something to the level of obsession or he is physically incapable of caring less. Currently he couldn’t care less. On the other hand you and Dave should not care as much as you do. Dave breaks you out of your train of thought with a huff.

“One month, one week, five days, fifteen hours, twenty three minutes, and fifty four seconds.” It’s been over a month since that day. You should let it go, but you just can’t. You’ve resisted the compulsion to make a puppet of him however, and that’s a start. The room is silent save for the pouring of juice and closing of the fridge door. Dave nibbles at his poptart at the island counter. You’re used to Dirk standing while eating. He hasn’t fully acclimated to living with other human beings and he is similar to you in a concerning number of respects, so his aloof behavior is understandable. Dave always sits to eat meals with you since then. He is standing out of spite. The ambiance of the dining room kitchen combo, the real estate agent’s words not yours, is particularly splendiferous this morning. You find yourself unable to scrounge up the will to fish out the last few soggy floaters. Their wheat by products swell in the milk further until the edges are fuzzy, making their former shapes indecipherable. It’s going to be a long fucking day. 

“Did you pick up your lists for school supplies?” You chase a poor shapeless glob around the bowl with the back of your spoon.

“We don’t have school supply lists for high school,” Dave replies.

“I’ll give you a few bucks and yah’ll can pick up the shit you need.” He grunts noncommittally. You return to hassling the hapless bits of cereal trapped in your bowl. The poor bastards, they have done nothing wrong to warrant this harsh treatment.

“There are new neighbors moving in next door.” It speaks. You turn your head a fraction towards Dirk to show your interest in the new topic he has brought to this soiree. Dave’s interest has also been piqued. He notices that he has seized your combined attention, yet continues to eat his toast. He is you and he isn’t, just enough to remind you of how much of an aggravating dysfunctional shit you can be. “I heard boxes moving around.” He finishes his current piece of toast before continuing. “Are we going to greet them?” You and Dave both raise your eyebrows. “Our neighbors greeted us when we moved in. Isn’t it customary to welcome a new neighbor with some sort of baked good?” You have flash backs of casseroles, so many casseroles. Casseroles filled the fridge, lined the countertops and over flowed onto the table. The bricks of assorted meats, noodles and cheeses might haunt you forever.

“I could give them a complimentary smuppet.” That earns a groan from Dave but Dirk doesn’t seem against the idea.

“Bro just no.”

“Just one lil bro.”

“Bro.”

“It won’t be one of the vibrating models.”

“No. Our current neighbors already think we’ve all taken a flying pirouette onto the crazy train with our day time strifing on the roof top, we can at least lure our new neighbors into a false sense of normalcy for now.”

“First rule of fight club, don’t talk about fight club,” you and Dirk say it in unison. Dave twitches.

“Fuck that’s creepy.”

“Us fucking would be creepy.”

“Or hot,” Dirk adds.

“The jury is still out.”

“They’ve spent a considerable amount of time reviewing the tapes.”

“Indeed they have.”

“We should start charging.”

“I’m going to my room,” Dave tosses his wrapper in the can and takes his unfinished aj back to his room. Dirk shrugs, cleans up, and wanders back to his room. You have the rest of the apartment to yourself. Time to film porn. You spend the afternoon working on your new series Smuppet Bondage Gang Bang, with enthusiastic consent of course. Nothing wrong at all with a smuppet that knows what it wants and isn’t afraid to ask. Dave pads out of his room a few hours later during a scene change. 

“John says that he has a surprise and that he wants Dirk and I at his house for dinner.” 

“Have fun.” 

“That’s it?”

“You saved the universe from ceasing to exist. I think that you can handle taking the bus to Egbert’s house for a sleepover.” 

“It’s the bus.”

“Do you want to borrow a sword?”

“I still have Caledfwlch, but I would like the car keys yo.” You stare at him. “Yes I want to borrow the hatchback.” He waits for your reply, you keep staring. “I have a driver’s permit.” You continue staring. “I’ll take the bus,” he grumbles. 

“Take Dirk and a toothbrush with you,” you call after him as he stalks off down the hallway. He and Dirk leave a few minutes later after you give them the perfunctory leaving the house speech complete with a baggie of condoms and lube for each. Dave turns beet red when you toss it to him, Dirk just adds it to his sylladex with a nod. They get the fuck out of dodge soon after to the more verdant plains of the suburbs and leave you alone to your own devices in the empty apartment. You order Chinese; the delivery guy doesn’t even blink when you open the door with My Little Pony reruns blaring in the background. You compliment his shoelaces. He tells you he stole them from the president. You give him a fifty percent tip, he gives you your food and both parties leave the interaction satisfied. Just how it should be.

Your satisfaction lasts as long as your eggroll. You’ve survived two years alone by yourself and now you get antsy after a few hours. The thing is this time you can open your front door and there will be stuff out there. You’ve tried it multiple times on several occasions. There are people and animals and plants and trees and buildings and cars out there. You aren’t alone, not at all. You put your leftovers in the fridge and go for a walk to prove it to yourself.

Twelve minutes later you find yourself standing outside of a reasonable looking bar and go in. You sit down at the bar and order a beer. There are multitudes of people here and you chose to talk to no one. You ponder the effects of alcohol as a social lubricant along with your enjoyment of alcohol and lubrication as you sip at a lack luster domestic. Your opinion on socialization is a bit more complicated. You do like interacting with some people on occasion which is surprising given that you’re the equivalent of a modern hermit. The problem is that the people that you do enjoy the company of aren’t here. Specifically the one person whose company you enjoy isn’t here and won’t be. Ever. You stare at the half empty bottle as “I Will Survive” starts blasting from the jukebox in the corner. If there is a god you’re sure that they hate you. 

“Oh fuck me,” you mutter to your bottle of brew.

“Let me buy you dinner first.” There’s a hand on your shoulder. You grind your teeth together and resist the urge to gut the prick. You turn and lo and behold your leave me the fuck alone to drown in my beer vibe attracted a bag of dicks with slicked back hair, wrapped in a tight white t-shirt, and even tighter jeans. 

“Take your hand off before I cut it off,” you growl. He jerks his hand away and holds both of them up in front of himself as a buffer.

“Calm down chief, no harm done.” He reminds you of someone. For fucks sakes even random douche bags are starting to remind you of the trolls. You give up pretending that this night is salvageable and walk back to your apartment to brood in silence. You grab another beer out of your fridge when you get home and flop down on the futon. At least you have decent beer to drown yourself here. 

“Fuck me and my nonexistent Texas twang.” Someone is knocking on your front door and you haven’t even gotten the cap off your brew yet. If that guy followed you home from the bar you will murder him and use his corpse for chum. The knocking doesn’t sound like it matches the skeevy bag of dicks though. You run through the incredibly short list of people that know where you live, care to communicate with you in person, and that you surmise would have a commanding sounding knock. Egbert and Crocker would both call before visiting. And that’s it for your list. It could be one of the new neighbors. You want to tell whoever is behind the door to fuck off but Dave wants you to play nice. You will play nice for Dave’s sake. The yet unseen bastard waiting in the hallway can count himself lucky. You allow your bottom lip to twitch once. You’ve wasted enough time with your little shit fit, time to figure out what exactly is going to fuck up the rest of your night. 

You open the door. Let’s start with the obvious. The guy is gargantuan, yes good term. He’s got to be at least six foot six, making your six foot one seem pithy in comparison. He looks like he could fight a grizzly and win. Check that he is a grizzly complete with a mass of long black hair wrestled into a low ponytail, a forest of stubble, and a manly amount of black arm hair. His skin is a shade of caramel that you just can’t place where he’s from and his eyes are dark pools. The idiot is trying to hide a grin and failing miserably. You think about shutting the door and he thrusts out his hand. You stare at it and he eventually stuffs it into a front pocket of his jeans. 

“Hi,” now he’s openly grinning like an idiot. “My name is GH Makara, friends call me Attila.” You stand there and blink, unable to move or speak contemplating whether or not the unnamed deity truly hates you or just enjoys watching you suffer. He hands you a bottle that seems to have materialized from out of nowhere. It’s the same brand of tequila that you drank together with Makara during the first night that you two met.

“Motherfucker I’m not hallucinating this time,” you hear yourself whisper. He looks so damn hopeful. “I wouldn’t create some pathetic wretched creature. You look like a pink soft two legged wiggler.” He takes a step closer crossing over the threshold. 

“You remember Bro?” 

“Yeah.” You remember. You can’t help but remember. He cautiously eases his way into your apartment and closes the door while he watches you for a reaction. You put the bottle of tequila on the floor. He’s standing a few feet away from you and you feel like a nervous teenager. “You’re here?” you ask and take a step closer.

“Yes.” 

“And you’re human?” another step.

“Yep,” he chuckles and idly runs his fingers through his tangle of hair making his pony tail an even bigger mess than it already is. “It’s motherfucking weird.” Makara is a completely different species and his hair is still the same, looks like it’s another universal constant. You take a step and look him in the eyes. 

“It’s not bad.”

“Not bad?” he asks playfully.

“Not bad,” you reply. He pushes your shades up until they are resting on top of your head. Makara looks into your orange eyes and smiles.

“Miracles.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a nice person and a bastard all at the same time. 
> 
> Oh and yes, that is Cronus. I gave him a five second cameo in the bar scene. 
> 
> If you have questions or comments about this fic hit me up on tumblr - bettername.tumbler.com.


	38. He'll Want to Move in Next Door

He looked into your eyes and said miracles. You try to maintain your composure and fail miserably. It’s raining in the living room of an apartment in a city in Texas just on your face. That’s a perfectly legitimate reason why there’s a droplet rolling down your cheek. You hear him take a step forward and feel him wrap his arms around you. He feels warm. You just can’t wrap your mind around that fact. He’s warm, he’s human, he’s alive, and most importantly he’s here with you. You wait for the imaginary music to swell, for him to sweep you off your feet or to crush your lips with his. But none of those things happen. The two of you stand by the door content to listen to the other breathe, to hear their heart beat, to know that the other exists, that it isn’t a dream. This isn’t the romantic reunion that you had imagined, because you never imagined one. 

Eventually you migrate to the futon. He tells you how he woke up as a human with two sons, a mortgage, and a small business. He describes his faded memories of him as a boy playing football in middle school, high school, and then earning a scholarship for college where he met his wife who would later leave him with their children. He knew he was human but he was plagued with dreams that he was not. His dreams felt more real than the time he spent awake. A few weeks ago he opened his front door and found a college student sobbing as he screamed ‘I’m not fucking doing this a second time so you better fucking remember me.’ At that moment he knew his vivid dreams weren’t dreams at all. 

Vantas told him that he lived with his pre-scratch self, who the game decided to make his twin much to his chagrin, and his wiggler Karkat, in his mother’s house along with her pre-scratch self and wiggler. His mother was engaged to Dualscar, who still kept in contact with Captor. Once Vantas had convinced them that they were not suffering from a mass delusion, which thankfully did not take much convincing at all since all of their human memories were vague at best, Psi was able to track all of the other former trolls down in a matter of hours. The humans took a few days. You took longer since you’re a motherfucking secretive bastard. Makara found out that the apartment next door to your new one was available and his plan was set. 

“So your masterful plan was to move in next door and hope for the best?” 

“Yep.” 

“And if I didn’t remember?” 

“How could you not remember this motherfucker?” His chuckle fades quickly into a drawn out sigh. “I hoped,” his hair is wrecked from him playing with it. “I hoped that I could get you to fall in love with me again.” 

“By being my neighbor…” 

“It worked the first time bro,” he grins. “I even brought the te-kill-yah to go along with my charming self.” 

“How dare you use alcohol to deprive me of my virtue you dastardly brute.” You put the back of a hand against your forehead and swoon. Your head ends up resting on his shoulder. 

“Virture?” You can feel his accompanying laughter vibrate through you. His eyes haven’t left yours though. You linger on his for a few moments longer before trailing down to his lips. So many things have changed but you can still hope. 

His kisses are the same even if his temperature is not. His scruff is rough against your skin, his lips are chapped, but you wouldn’t trade this moment for anything. He shifts with you on the futon, turning to face each other. You lean up, he meets you in the middle running his fingers through your hair and stopping at the back as you fist your hand in his. You pull him down with you. He follows eagerly. You didn’t think that dry humping on a futon could be arousing and nostalgic. He bites your bottom lip and lets it slide between his teeth as he draws back. You grind your hips up against his and he growls switching his focus to your neck. He licks a broad stripe up the side before working his way back down with wet kisses. You shiver as he lightly drags his teeth over the crook of your neck. It’s not so much for the feeling but for the implication. You can take the troll out of Alternia but you can’t remove his instinct.

“Makara.” He looks up at you like you are a bowl of ice cream and he is the spoon. You seriously contemplate finishing this on the futon, but give in to the call of your queen sized bed that’s only ever held one. You motion in the direction of your bedroom and he runs his tongue over his bottom lip. Eagerness tramples on any sense of gracefulness and coordination that that two of you have, but the both of you manage to get off the futon with few injuries and make your way back to your room. 

You shut your door and he pushes you up against it sticking to you like a piece of cling wrap. You stifle a moan with his lips and then his tongue. He slides a hand underneath your shirt drawing a map of you with his fingertips and uses his other to grope your perfectly plush rump through your jeans. You hastily untuck his shirt and move on to attack his buttons. He breaks contact to shuck his shirt and you peel off yours. 

“I’m going to bite you where you can’t hide it so everyone knows that you’re mine.” You smirk and unfasten your belt buckle. He watches you slowly draw the belt through each belt loop and toss it on the floor. Your hand hesitates over the button on your jeans as you remember that you gave Dirk and Dave the last of your lube and condom samples before they left. “Shit.” 

“What?” Makara asks alarmed. 

“We need lube.” Your boyfriend is no longer a magically self-lubricating troll. This could be a problem. “I think I might have some packed in a moving box. I just don’t remember which one.” 

You are the emperor of a porn empire built on the plush felt rumps of hard working smuppets and your dirty imagination. You shouldn’t be digging through boxes at the bottom of your closet searching for lube and condoms while your boyfriend who you never thought you would see again languishes on your bed. Blame it all on your lack of libido. Your dick hasn’t gotten up since that day unless it knows it’s going to work. But now, now you have a raging hard on and one remaining box to root through. You find a few stray condoms that haven’t expired yet in an old pair of pants and after a bit more digging a half full bottle that will do just nicely. 

Makara sits up as you saunter over to the bed victorious. He holds his hands out ready to catch the bottle.

“Have you done this as a human?”

“No, but I did find your website and got my gander on.” 

“Then you know that I still need to prep it’s … been awhile.” You don’t need to be kneaded like Play-Doh but you do need to relax. Makara grins, holds up his hands and wiggles his fingers.

“Bro I don’t have motherfucking meat hooks anymore. And you know what else this fucker don’t have?” You watch him run the tip of his tongue along his teeth with rapt attention. He chuckles when he sees that you understand his message loud and clear. You hastily unzip your fly and push down your jeans and boxers in one go. He then proves to you just how much attention he’s paid when watching your videos with his fingers and mouth. You have to forcibly pull him up off your cock by his hair to get him to stop before you end things early. 

“Get a condom on and get in me now,” you pant. The bastard takes his time removing his pants and getting himself covered. He watches you squirm on the bed as he slicks himself up. “Tease.”

He snickers. “I wasn’t the fucker that wrote pail me on my own motherfucking chest.” 

“I can do that again.”

“Or you can just say it bro.” 

“Alright.” You scoot until your back is propped up on pillows. You spread open your legs and bend your knees letting him enjoy the view. “Makara. I want you to fuck me.” And he does. Twice, with a water break in between. And it is glorious. 

You wake up the next morning to the smell of pancakes and rumpled sheets on the other side of the bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If You Give a Subjugglator a Shot of Tequila He'll Want to Move in Next Door
> 
> This is the end my readers. This has been a year long journey where I had surpassed many of my personal bests. I would like to thank you all for all of the wonderful comments and kudos that you have given me and this fic over the past year. I hope that you all have enjoyed reading this as much as I have enjoyed writing this. 
> 
> -Bettername

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